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Castles and Chateaux 

OF 

OLD BURGUNDY 

AND THE BORDER PROVINCES 

By Francis Miltoun 

Author of "Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine," " Castles and 

Chateaux of Old Navarre," " Rambles in Normandy," " Italian 

Highways and Byways from a Motor-Car," etc. 

With Many Illustrations 
Reproduced from paintings made on the spot 

By Blanche McManus 




Boston 
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 

1909 




Copyright, 1909, 

Bt L. C. Page & Company 
(incoepokated) 

All rights reserved 



First Impression, November, 1909 



©Ci.A2i 



Electrotyped and Printed by 
THE COLONIAL PBESS 
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 




Contents 






Hj 




'twiniy 



OHAPTEK 

I. The Realm of the Burgundians 
II. In the Valley of the Yonne , 

III. AVALLON, VeZBLAY, AND ChASTELLUX . 

IV. Semur - en - Auxois, Epoisses and Bour- 

BILLY 

V. Montbard and Bussy - Rabutin . 
VI. " Chastillon au Noble Dug " 

VII. TONNERRE, TaNLAY AND AnCY - LE - FrANC 

VIII. In Old Burgundy 

IX. Dijon the City of the Dukes . 

X. In the Cote d'Or : Beaune, La Rochepot 

AND Epinac 

XI. Macon, Cluny and the Charollais . 

XII. In the Beaujolais and Lyonnais 

XIII. The Franche Comte; Auxonne and Be- 

sangon 

XIV. On the Swiss Border: Bugey and Bresse 
XV. Grenoble and Vizille ; the Capital of the 

Dauphins 

XVI. Chambery and the Lac du Bourget . 

V 



PAGB 
1 

19 
36 

50 

62 

75 

84 

101 

131 

113 
153 
170 

185 
199 

218 
229 



VI 



Contents 



CHAPTER 

XVII. 
XVIII. 

XIX. 
XX. 

XXI. 
XXII. 



In the Shadow of La Grande Chartreuse 

Annecy and Lac Leman 

The Mountain Background of Savoy 

By the Banks of the Rhone 

In the Alps of Dauphiny . 

In Lower Dauphiny .... 

Index 



PAGB 

245 
259 
278 
290 
300 
313 
325 




* Chateau de Montbeliard (see page 194) 

* Geographical Limits covered by Contents 
^The Heart of Old Burgundy (Map) . 
"Chateau de Saint Fargeau 

Tour Gaillarde, Auxerre 
■Chateau de Chastellux 
"Semur - en - Auxois . 
' Chateau d'P]poisses 
'' Arnay - le - Due 

<]hateau de Bussy - Rabutin 
I/Chateau des Dues, Chatillon 

■"Chateau de Tanlay 

^Chateau and Gardens of Ancy - le - Franc 
./Chateau of Ancy - le - Franc 
V Monograms from the Chambre des Fleurs 
vBurgundy through the Ages (Map) . 
-The Dijonnais and the Reaujolais (Map) 

Key of Vaulting, Dijon .... 

Cuisines at Dijon 

/ Chateau des Dues, Dijon .... 

vii 



PAGE 

Frontispiece 

(Map) X 

facing 2 

facing 28 

facing 32 

facing 38 

facing 50 

facing 54 

facing 60 

facing 68 

facing 76 

facing 90 

. 94 

facing 96 

. 98 

. 101 

facing 1 12 

. 113 

. 119 

facing 122 



viii List of Illustrations 



PAGE 

^'Clos Vougeot. — Chambertin 137 

V Hospice de Beaune facing 144 

•'Chateau de La Rochepot .... facing 148 

Chateau de Sully facing 150 

* Chateau de Chaumont - la - Guiche . . facing 154 

V Hotel de Ville, Paray - le - Monail . facing 156 

Xhateau de Lamartine facing 166 

^Chateau de Noble 169 

■'Palais Granvelle, Besancon . . . facing 192 

The Lion op Belfort 195 

Women op Bresse facing 200 

Chateau de Voltaire, Ferney . . . facing 204 

Tower of the Palais de Justice, Grenoble . 219 

Chateau d'Uriagb facing 224 

Chateau de Vizille facing 226 

Portal of the Chateau de Chambery . facing 230 

Portal St. Dominique, Chambery .... 231 

' Chateau de Chambery . . . . , . facing 232 

Les Charmettes 235 

'Chateau de Chignin facing 238 

Abbey of Hautecombe facing 240 

\Maison des Dauphins, Tour -de - Pin . facing 246 

\Chateau Bayard facing 248 

'^La Tour Sans Venin . ... . . . 255 

MI!hateau d'Annecy ...... facing 260 

-^Chateau de Ripaille . . . . . facing 272 

Evian facing 276 

Aix - les - Bains to Albertville (Map) . . . 279 

Montmelian 280 

Chateau de Miolans facing 284 

-Conflans facing 286 

"^Seal of the Native Dauphins 290 

•Tower of Philippe de Valois, Vienne . facing 292 

Chateau de Crussol facing 298 

Chateau de Briancon facing 304 



List of Illustrations ix 

PAGE 

vBbiancon; Its Chateau and Old Fortified Bridge 305 

V Chateau Queyras . . . . . . facing 308 

^ Chateau de Beauvoir facing 316 

IChateau de la Sone ..... fating 320 



Castles and Chateaux 
of Old Burgundy 

and the Border Provinces 



CHAPTEE I 

THE REALM OP THE BURGUNDIANS 

" La plus helle Comte, c'est Flandre; 
La plus helle ducTie, c'est Bourgogne, 
Le plus beau royaume, c'est France," 

This statement is of undeniable merit, as 
some of us, who so love la helle France — even 
though we be strangers — well know. 

The Burgundy of Charlemagne's time was a 
much vaster extent of territory than that of the 
period when the province came to play its own 
kingly part. From the borders of Neustria to 
Lombardia and Provence it extended from the 
northwest to the southeast, and from Austrasia 
and Alamannia in the northeast to Aquitania 
and Septimania in the southwest. In other 
words, it embraced practically the entire water- 
shed of the Rhone and even included the upper 
reaches of the Yonne and Seine and a very large 

1 



2 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
portion of the Loire ; in short, all of the great 
central plain lying between the Alps and the 
Cevennes. 

The old Burgundian province was closely 
allied topographically, climatically and by ties 
of family, with many of its neighbouring polit- 
ical divisions. Almost to the He de France 
this extended on the north; to the east, the 
Franche Comte was but a dismemberment; 
whilst the Nivernais and the Bourbonnais to 
the west, through the lands and influence of 
their seigneurs, encroached more or less on 
Burgundy or vice versa if one chooses to think 
of it in that way. To the southeast Dombes, 
Bresse and Bugey, all closely allied with one 
another, bridged the leagues which separated 
Burgundy from Savoy, and, still farther on, 
Dauphiny. 

The influence of the Burgundian spirit was, 
however, over all. The neighbouring states, the 
nobility and the people alike, envied and emu- 
lated, as far as they were able, the luxurious 
life of the Burgundian seigneurs later. If at 
one time or another they were actually enemies, 
they sooner, in many instances at least, allied 
themselves as friends or partisans, and the 
manner of life of the Burgundians of the mid- 
dle ages became their own. 



^^1 



f A 



The Eealm of the Burgundians 3 

Not in the royal domain of France itself, not 
in luxurious Touraine, was there more love of 
splendour and the gorgeous trappings of the 
ceremonial of the middle ages than in Bur- 
gundy. It has ever been a land of prosperity 
and plenty, to which, in these late days, must 
be added peace, for there is no region in all 
France of to-day where there is more content- 
ment and comfort than in the wealthy and opu- 
lent Departments of the Cote d'Or and the 
Saone and Loire which, since the Eevolution, 
have been carved out of the very heart of old 
Burgundy. 

The French themselves are not commonly 
thought to be great travellers, but they love 
'' le voyage " nevertheless, and they are as 
justifiably proud of their antiquities and their 
historical monuments as any other race on 
earth. That they love their patrie, and all that 
pertains to it, with a devotion seemingly inex- 
plicable to a people who go in only for 
'' spreadeaglism, " goes without saying. 

" Qu'il est doux de courir le monde ! 
ATi ! qu'il est doux de voyager ! " 

sang the author of the libretto of '' Diamants 
de la Couronne," and he certainly expressed 
the sentiment welL 



4 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

The Parisians themselves know and love Bur- 
gundy perhaps more than any other of the old 
mediaeval provinces; that is, they seemingly 
love it for itself; such minor contempt as they 
have for a Provengal, a Norman or a Breton 
does not exist with regard to a Bourguignon. 

Said Michelet: " Burgundy is a country 
where all are possessed of a pompous and 
solemn eloquence." This is a tribute to its 
men. And he continued: " It is a country of 
good livers and joyous seasons ' ' — and this 
is an encomium of its bounty. 

The men of the modern world who own to 
Burgundy as their patrie are almost too numer- 
ous to catalogue, but all will recall the names of 
Buffon, Guyton de Morveau, Monge and Car- 
not, Eude, Rameau, Sambin, Greuze and Pru- 
d'hon. 

In the arts, too. Burgundy has played its own 
special part, and if the chateau-builder did not 
here run riot as luxuriously as in Touraine, he 
at least builded well and left innumerable ex- 
amples behind which will please the lover of 
historic shrines no less than the more florid 
Eenaissance of the Loire. 

In the eighteenth century, the heart of Bur- 
gundy was traversed by the celebrated '" coches 
d'ecm " which, as a means of transportation for 



The Realm of the Burgundians 5 

travellers, was considerably more of an ap- 
proach to the ideal than the railway of to-day. 
These " caches d'eau " covered the distance 
from Chalon to Lyon via the Saone. One reads 
in the " Almanach de Lyon et des Provinces 
de Lyonnois, Forez et Beaujolais, pour I'annee 
bissextile 1760," that two of these " caches " 
each week left Lyon, on Mondays and Thurs- 
days, making the journey to Chalon without 
interruption via Trevoux, Macon and Tournus. 
From Lyon to Chalon took the better part of 
two and a half days' time, but the descent was 
accomplished in less than two days. From 
Chalon, by '' guimharde," it was an affair of 
eight days to Paris via Arnay-le-Duc, Saulieu, 
Vermanton, Auxerre, Joigny and Sens. By 
diligence all the way, the journey from the cap- 
ital to Lyon was made in five days in summer 
and six in winter. Says Mercier in his '' Ta- 
bleau de Paris " : " When Sunday came on, the 
journey mass was said at three o'clock in the 
morning at some tavern en route." 

The ways and means of travel in Burgundy 
have considerably changed in the last two hun- 
dred years, but the old-time flavour of the road 
still hangs over all, and the traveller down 
through Burgundy to-day, especially if he goes 
by road, may experience not a little of the 



6 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

charm which has all but disappeared from 
modern France and its interminably straight, 
level, tree-lined highways. Often enough one 
may stop at some old posting inn famous in his- 
tory and, as he wheels his way along, will see 
the same historic monuments, magnificent 
churches and chateaux as did that prolific letter 
writer, Madame de Sevigne. 

Apropos of these mediseval and Kenaissance 
chateaux scattered up and down France, the 
Sieur Colin, in 1654, produced a work entitled 
*' Le Fidele Conducteur pour les Voyages en 
France " in which he said that every hillside 
throughout the kingdom was dotted with a 
" belle maison " or a ^' palais." He, too, like 
some of us of a later day, believed France the 
land of chateaux par excellence. 

Evelyn, the diarist (1641-1647), thought 
much the same thing and so recorded his opin- 
ion. 

The Duchesse de Longueville, (1646-1647), on 
her journey from Paris called the first chateau 
passed on the way a '^ palais des fees/' which 
it doubtless was in aspect, and Mile, de Mont- 
pensier, in a lodging with which she was forced 
to put up at Saint Fargeau, named it '' plus 
beau d'un chateau/' — a true enough estimate 
of many a maison bourgeois of the time. At 



The Realm of the Burgundians 7 

Pouges-les-Eaux, in the Nivernais, just on the 
borders of Burgundy, whilst she was still trav- 
elling south, Mile, de Montpensier put up at 
the chateau of a family friend and partook 
of an excellent dinner. This really speaks 
much for the appointments of the house in 
which she stopped, though one is forced to 
imagine the other attributes. She seemingly 
had arrived late, for she wrote : ' ' I was indeed 
greatly surprised and pleased with my wel- 
come; one could hardly have expected such 
attentions at so unseemly an hour." 

La Fontaine was a most conscientious travel- 
ler and said some grand things of the Renais- 
sance chateaux-builders of which literary his- 
tory has neglected to make mention. 

Lippomano, the Venetian Ambassador of the 
sixteenth century, professed to have met with 
a population uncivil and wanting in probity, but 
he exalted, nevertheless, to the highest the 
admirable chateaux of princes and seigneurs 
which he saw on the way through Burgundy. 
Zinzerling, a young Grerman traveller, in the 
year 1616, remarked much the same thing, but 
regretted that a certain class of sight-seers was 
even then wont to scribble names in public 
places. We of to-day who love old monuments 
have, then, no more reason to complain than 



8 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

had this observant traveller of three hundred 
years ago. 

Madame Laroche was an indefatigable trav- 
eller of a later day (1787), and her comments 
on the '' belles maisons de campagne " in these 
parts (she was not a guest in royal chateaux, 
it seems) throw many interesting side lights 
on the people, the manners and the customs of 
her time. 

Bertin in his " Voyage de Bourgogne " re- 
counts a noble welcome which he received at the 
chateau of a Burgundian seigneur — ' ' Salvos 
of musketry, with the seigneur and the ladies of 
his household awaiting on the perron.'''' This 
would have made an ideal stage grouping. 

Arthur Young, the English agriculturist, 
travelling in France just previous to the Revo- 
lution, had all manner of comment for the 
French dwelling of whatever rank, but his ob- 
servations in general were more with reference 
to the chaumieres of peasants than with the 
chateaux of seigneurs. 

Time was when France was more thickly 
bestrewn with great monasteries and abbeys 
than now. They were in many ways the rivals 
of the palatial country houses of the seigneurs, 
and their princely ahhes and priors and prel- 
ates frequently wielded a local power no 



The Realm of the Burgundians 9 

less militant than that of their secular neigh- 
bours. 

Great churches, abbeys, monasteries, for- 
tresses, chateaux, donjons and barbican gates 
are hardly less frequently seen in France to- 
day than they were of old, although in many 
instances a ruin only exists to tell the tale of 
former splendour. 

This is as true of Burgundy as it is of other 
parts of France ; indeed, it is, perhaps, a more 
apt reference here than it would be with regard 
to Normandy or Picardy, where many a medisB- 
val civic or religious shrine has been made into 
a warehouse or a beet-sugar factory. The 
closest comparison of this nature that one can 
make with respect to these parts is that some 
Cistercian monastery has become a " wine- 
chateau " like the Clos Vougeot or Beaune's 
Hospice or Hotel Dieu, which, in truth, at cer- 
tain periods, is nothing more nor less than a 
great wholesale wine-shop. 

Mediaeval French towns, as well in Burgundy 
as elsewhere, were invariably built up on one 
of three plans. The first was an outgrowth of 
the remains and debris of a more ancient Gaul- 
ish or Eoman civilization, and purely civic and 
secular. The second class of community came 
as a natural ally of some great abbey, sei- 



10 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

gneurial chateau, really a fortress or an episco- 
pal foundation which demanded freedom from 
molestation as its undeniable right. It was in 
such latter places that the bishops and abbes 
held forth with a magnificence and splendour 
of surroundings scarcely less imposing than 
that of royalty itself, though their domains 
were naturally more restricted in area and the 
powers that the prelates wielded were often no 
less powerful than their militant neighbours. 
The third class of mediaBval settlements were 
the villes-neuves, or the villes-f ranches , a class 
of communities usually exempt from the exac- 
tions of seigneurs and churchmen alike, a class 
of towns readily recognized by their nomen- 
clature. 

By the sixteenth century the soil of France 
was covered with a myriad of residential cha- 
teaux which were the admiration and envy of 
the lords of all nations. There had sprung up 
beside the old feudal fortresses a splendid gal- 
axy of luxurious dwellings having more the air 
of domesticity than of warfare, which was the 
chief characteristics of their predecessors. It 
was then that the word chateau came to sup- 
plant that of chastel in the old-time chronicles. 

Richelieu and the Fronde destroyed many a 
mediaeval fane whose ruins were afterwards re- 



The Realm of the Burgundians 11 

built by some later seigneur into a Kenaissance 
palace of great splendour. The Italian builder 
lent his aid and his imported profusion of de- 
tail until there grew up all over France a dis- 
tinct variety of dwelling which quite outdis- 
tanced anything that had gone before. This 
was true in respect to its general plan as well 
as with regard to the luxury of its decorative 
embellishments. Fortresses were razed or re- 
modelled, and the chateau — the French cha- 
teau as we know it to-day, distinct from the 
chastel — then first came into being. 

Any review of the castle, chateau and palace 
architecture of France, and of the historic inci- 
dent and the personages connected therewith, 
is bound to divide itself into a geographical or 
climatic category. To begin with the manner 
of building of the southland was only trans- 
planted in northern soil experimentally, and it 
did not always take root so vigorously that it 
was able to live. 

The Renaissance glories of Touraine and the 
valley of the Loire, though the outcome of vari- 
ous Italian pilgrimages, were of a more florid 
and whimsical fashioning than anything in Italy 
itself, either at the period of their inception or 
even later, and so they are to be considered as 
something distinctly French, — indeed, it was 



12 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

their very influence which was to radiate all 
over the chateau-building world of the four- 
teenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 

By contrast, the square and round donjon 
towers of the fortress-chateaux — like Arques, 
Falais and Coucy — were more or less 
an indigenous growth taking their plan from 
nothing alien. Midi and the centre of France, 
Provence, the Pyrenees and the valleys of the 
Ehone and Saone, gave birth, or development, 
to still another variety of mediaeval architecture 
both military and domestic, whilst the Ehine 
provinces developed the species along still other 
constructional lines. 

There was, to be sure, a certain reminiscence, 
or repetition of common details among all ex- 
tensive works of mediaeval building, but they 
existed only by sufferance and were seldom in- 
corporated as constructive elements beyond the 
fact that towers were square or round, and that 
the most elaborately planned chateaux were 
built around an inner courtyard, or were sur- 
rounded by a fosse, or moat. 

In Burgundy and the Bourbonnais, and to 
some extent in the Nivernais, there grew up a 
distinct method of castle-building which was 
only allied with the many other varieties scat- 
tered over France in the sense that the fabrics 



The Realm of the Burgundians 13 

were intended to serve the same purposes as 
their contemporaries elsewhere. The solid 
square shafts flanking a barbican gate, — the 
same general effect observable of all fortified 
towns, — the profuse use of heavy Renaissance 
sculpture in town houses, the interpolated 
Flemish-Gothic (seen so admirably at Beaune 
and Dijon), and above all, the Burgundian 
school of sculptured figures and figurines were 
details which flowered hereabouts as they did 
nowhere else. 

So far as the actual numbers of the edifices 
go it is evident that throughout Burgundy ec- 
clesiastical architecture developed at the ex- 
pense of the more luxuriously endowed civic 
and domestic varieties of Touraine, which, we 
can not deny, must ever be considered the real 
'' chateaux country," In Touraine the splen- 
dour of ecclesiastical building took a second 
place to that of the domestic dwelling, or coun- 
try or town house. 

For the most part, the Romanesque domestic 
edifice has disappeared throughout Burgundy. 
Only at Cluny are there any very considerable 
remains of the domestic architecture of the 
Romans, and even here there is nothing very 
substantial, no tangible reminder of the palace 
of emperor or consul, only some fragments of 



14 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

more or less extensive edifices which were built 
by the art which the Eomans brought with them 
from beyond the Alps when they overran Gaul. 
If one knows how to read the signs, there may 
still be seen at Cluny fragments of old Eoman 
walls of stone, brick, and even of wood, and the 
fact that they have already stood for ten or a 
dozen centuries speaks much for the excellence 
of their building. It was undoubtedly some- 
thing just a bit better than the modern way of 
doing things. 

Of all the domestic edifices of Burgundy dat- 
ing from the thirteenth century or earlier, that 
enclosing the '' cuisines " (the only name by 
which this curious architectural detail is 
known) of the old palace of the dukes at Dijon 
is credited by all authorities as being quite the 
most remarkable, indeed, the most typical, of 
its environment. After this comes the Salle 
Synodale at Sens. These two, showing the 
civic and domestic details of the purely Bur- 
gundian manner of building, represent their 
epoch at its very best. 

In Dauphiny and Savoy, and to a certain 
extent the indeterminate ground of Bresse, 
Dombes and Bugey which linked Burgundy 
therewith, military and civic architecture in the 
middle ages took on slightly different forms. 



The Realm of the Burgundians 15 

Nevertheless, the style was more nearly allied 
to that obtaining in mid-France than to that 
of the Midi, or to anything specifically Italian 
in motive, although Savoy was for ages con- 
nected by liens of blood with the holder of the 
Italian crown. 

It was only in 1792 that Savoy became a 
French Departement, with the rather unsatis- 
factory nomenclature of Mont Blanc. It is 
true, however, that by holding to the name of 
Mont Blanc the new department would at least 
have impressed itself upon the travelling pub- 
lic, as well as the fact that the peak is really 
French. As it is, it is commonly thought to 
be Swiss, though for a fact it is leagues from 
the Swiss frontier. 

Before a score of years had passed Savoy 
again became subject to an Italian prince. Less 
than half a century later ' ' La Savoie ' ' became 
a pearl in the French diadem for all time, form- 
ing the Departements of Haute Savoie and 
Savoie of to-day. 

The rectangular fortress-like chateau — in- 
deed more a fortress than a chateau — was 
more often found in the plains than in the 
mountains. It is for this reason that the cha- 
teaux of the Alpine valleys and hillsides of 
Savoy and Dauphiny differ from those of the 



16 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Rhone or the Saone. The Ehine castle of our 
imaginations may well stand for one type ; the 
other is best represented by the great paral- 
lelogram of Aigues-Mortes, or better yet by 
the walls and towers of the Cite at Carcas- 
sonne. 

Feudal chateaux up to the thirteenth century 
were almost always constructed upon an emi- 
nence; it was only with the beginning of this 
epoch that the seigneurs dared to build a coun- 
try house without the protection of natural bul- 
warks. 

The two types are represented in this book, 
those of the plain and those of the mountain, 
though it is to be remembered that it is the 
specific castle-like edifice, and not the purely 
residential chateau that often exists in the 
mountainous regions to the exclusion of the 
other variety. After that comes the ornate 
country house, in many cases lacking utterly the 
defences which were the invariable attribute of 
the castle. Miolans and Montmelian in Savoy 
stand for examples of the first mentioned class ; 
Chastellux, Ancy-le-Franc and Tanlay in Bur- 
gundy for the second. 

Examples of the hotels privees, the town 
houses of the seigneurs who for the most part 
spent their time in their maisons de campagne. 



The Realm of the Burgundians 17 

of the large towns and provincial cities are not 
to be neglected, nor have they been by the au- 
thor and artist who have made this book. As 
examples may be cited the Maison des Dau- 
phins at Tour-de-Pin, that elaborate edifice at 
Paray-le-Monail, various examples at Dijon 
and the svelt, though unpretending, Palais 
des Granvelle at Besancon in the Franche 
Comte. 

To sum up the chateau architecture, and, to 
be comprehensive, all mediseval and Renaissance 
architecture in France, we may say that it 
stands as something distinctly national, some- 
thing that has absorbed much of the best of 
other lands but which has been fused with the 
ingenious daring of the Gaul into a style which 
later went abroad to all nations of the globe as 
something distinctly French. It matters little 
whether proof of this be sought in Touraine, 
Burgundy or Poitou, for while each may pos- 
sess their eccentricities of style, and excellen- 
cies as varied as their climates, all are to-day 
distinctly French, and must be so considered 
from their inception. 

Among these master works which go to give 
glory and renown to French architecture are 
not only the formidable castles and luxurious 
chateaux of kings and princes but also the 



18 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
great civic palaces and military works of con- 
temporary epochs, for these, in many instances, 
combined the functions of a royal dwelling with 
their other condition. 



CHAPTER II 

IN THE VALLEY OF THE YONNE 

Theee is no more charming river valley in 
all France than that of the Yonne, which wan- 
ders from mid-Burgundy down to join the Seine 
just above Fontainebleau and the artists' 
haunts of Moret and Montigny. 

The present day Departement of the Yonne 
was carved out of a part of the old Senonais 
and Auxerrois; the latter, a Burgundian fief, 
and the former, a tiny countship under the 
suzerainty of the Counts of Champagne, Man- 
ners and customs, and art and architecture, 
however, throughout the department favour 
Burgundy in the south rather than the northern 
influences which radiated from the lie de 
France. This is true not only with respect to 
ecclesiastical, civic and military architecture, 
but doubly so with the domestic varieties rang- 
ing from the humble cottage to the more 
ambitious manoirs and gentilshommeries, and 
finally, to the still more magnificent seigneurial 
chateaux. Within the confines of this area are 
some of the most splendid examples extant of 

19 



20 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Burgxmdian domestic architecture of the Ee- 
naissance period. 

The Yonne is singularly replete with feudal 
memories and monuments as well. One re- 
marks this on all sides, whether one enters di- 
rect from Paris or from the east or west. From 
the Morvan and the Gatinais down through the 
Auxerrois, the Tonnerrois and the fipoisses is 
a definite sequence of architectural monuments 
which in a very remarkable way suggest that 
they were the outgrowth of a distinctly Bur- 
gundian manner of building, something quite 
different from anything to be seen elsewhere. 

In the ninth century, when the feudality first 
began to recognize its full administrative pow- 
ers, the local counts of the valley of the Yonne 
were deputies merely who put into motion the 
machinery designed by the nobler powers, the 
royal vassals of the powerful fiefs of Auxerre, 
Sens, Tonnerre and Avallon. The actual lease 
of life of these greater powers varied consid- 
erably according to the individual fortunes of 
their seigneurs, but those of Joigny and Ton- 
nerre endured until 1789, and the latter is in- 
corporated into a present day title which even 
red republicanism has not succeeded in wiping 
out. 

The real gateway to the Yonne valley is prop- 



In the Valley of the Yonne 21 

erly enough Sens, but Sens itself is little or 
nothing Burgundian with respect to its archi- 
tectural glories in general. Its Salle Synodale 
is the one example which is distinct from the 
northern born note which shows so plainly in 
the tower and fagade of its great cathedral; 
mostly Sens is reminiscent of the sway and 
tastes of the royal Bourbons. 

A few leagues south of Sens the aspect of all 
things changes precipitately. At Villeneuve- 
sur- Yonne one takes a gigantic step backward 
into the shadowy past. Whether or no he ar- 
rives by the screeching railway or the scorch- 
ing automobile of the twentieth century, from 
the moment he passes the feudal-built gateway 
which spans the main street — actually the 
great national highway which links Paris 
with the Swiss and Italian frontiers — and 
gazes up at its battlemented crest, he is trans- 
ported into the realms of romance. Travellers 
there are, perhaps, who might prefer to arrive 
on foot, but there are not many such passionate 
pilgrims who would care to do this thing to- 
day. They had much better, however, adopt 
even this mode of travel should no other be 
available, for at Villeneuve there are many aids 
in conjuring up the genuine old-time spirit of 
things. 



22 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

At the opposite end of this long main street 
is yet another great barbican gate, the twin of 
that at the northerly end. Together they form 
the sole remaining vestiges of the rampart 
* which enclosed the old Villeneuve-le-Roi, the 
title borne by the town of old. Yet despite such 
notable landmarks, there are literally thousands 
of stranger tourists who rush by Villeneuve by 
road and rail in a season and give never so 
much as a thought or a glance of the eye 
to its wonderful scenic and romantic splen- 
dours ! 

Before 1163 Villeneuve was known as Villa- 
Longa, after its original Eoman nomenclature, 
but a newer and grander city grew up on the 
old emplacement with fortification walls and 
towers and gates, built at the orders of 
Louis VII. It was then that it came to be 
known as the king's own city and was called 
Villeneuve-le-Roi. By a special charter granted 
at this time Villeneuve, like Lorris on the banks 
of the Loire, was given unusual privileges 
which made it exempt from Crown taxes, and 
allowed the inhabitants to hunt and fish freely 
— feudal favours which were none too readily 
granted in those days. Louis himself gave the 
new city the name of Villa-Francia-Regia, but 
the name was soon corrupted to Villeneuve-le- 



In the Valley of the Yonne 23 

Roi, For many years the city served as the 
chief Burgundian outpost in the north. 

The great tower, or citadel, a part of the 
royal chateau where the king lodged on his 
brief visits to his pet city, was intended at once 
to serve as a fortress and a symbol of dignity, 
and it played the double part admirably. At- 
tached to this tower on the north was the Eoyal 
Chateau de Salles, a favourite abode of the 
royalties of the thirteenth century. Little or 
nothing of this dwelling remains to-day save 
the walls of the chapel, and here and there an 
expanse of wall built up into some more humble 
edifice, but still recognizable as once having 
possessed a greater dignity. There are various 
fragmentary foundation walls of old towers and 
other dependencies of the chateau, and the old 
ramparts cropping out here and there, but there 
is no definitely formed building of a sufficiently 
coromanding presence to warrant rank as a his- 
torical monument of the quality required by the 
governmental authorities in order to have its 
patronage and protection. 

Philippe-Auguste, in 1204, assembled here a 
parliament where the celebrated ordonnance 
'* Stabilementum Feudorum " was framed. 
This alone is enough to make Villeneuve stand 
out large in the annals of feudalism, if indeed 



24 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

no monuments whatever existed to bring it to 
mind. It was the code by which the entire 
machinery of French feudalism was put into 
motion and kept in running order, and for this 
reason the Chateau de Salles, where the king 
was in residence when he gave his hand and seal 
to the document, should occupy a higher place 
than it usually does. The Chateau de Salles 
was called " royal " in distinction to the usual 
seigneurial chateau which was merely " noble.'' 
It was not so much a permanent residence of 
the French monarchs as a sort of a rest-house 
on the way down to their Burgundian posses- 
sion after they had become masters of the 
duchy. The donjon tower that one sees to-day 
is the chief, indeed the only definitely defined, 
fragment of this once royal chateau which still 
exists, but it is sufficiently impressive and grand 
in its proportions to suggest the magnitude of 
the entire fabric as it must once have been, and 
for that reason is all-sufficient in its appeal to 
the romantic and historic sense. 

Situated as it was on the main highway be- 
tween Paris and Dijon, Villeneuve occupied a 
most important strategic position. It spanned 
this old Eoute Eoyale with its two city gates, 
and its ramparts stretched out on either side in 
a determinate fashion which allowed no one to 



In the Valley of the Yonne 25 

enter or pass through it that might not be wel- 
come. These graceful towered gateways which 
exist even to-day were the models from which 
many more of their kind were built in other 
parts of the royal domain, as at Magny-en- 
Vexin, at Moret-sur-Loing, and at Macon. 

A dozen kilometres from Villeneuve-sur- 
Yonne is Joigny, almost entirely surrounded by 
a beautiful wildwood, the Foret National de 
Joigny. Joigny was one of the last of the local 
fiefs to give up its ancient rights and privileges. 
The fief took rank as a Vicomte. Jeanne de 
Valois founded a hospice here — the predeces- 
sor of the present Hotel Dieu — and the Cardi- 
nal de Gondi of unworthy fame built the local 
chateau in the early seventeenth century. 

The Chateau de Joigny, as became its digni- 
fied state, was nobly endowed, having been 
built to the Cardinal's orders by the Italian 
Serlio in 1550-1613. To-day the structure 
serves the functions of a schoolhouse and is 
little to be remarked save that one hunts it out 
knowing its history. 

There is this much to say for the schoolhouse- 
chateau at Joigny ; it partakes of the construct- 
ive and decorative elements of the genuine local 
manner of building regardless of its Italian 
origin, and here, as at Villeneuve, there is a dis- 



26 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

tinct element of novelty in all domestic archi- 
tecture which is quite different from the varie- 
ties to be remarked a little further north. 
There, the town houses are manifestly town 
houses, but at Joigny, as often as not, when they 
advance beyond the rank of the most humble, 
they partake somewhat of the attributes of a 
castle and somewhat of those of a palace. This 
is probably because the conditions of life have 
become easier, or because, in general, wealth, 
even in mediaeval times, was more evenly dis- 
tributed. Certainly the noblesse here, as we 
know, was more numerous than in many other 
sections. 

Any one of a score of Joigny's old Eenais- 
sance houses, which line its main street and the 
immediate neighbourhood of its market-place, 
is suggestive of the opulent life of the sei- 
gneurs of old to almost as great a degree as the 
Gondi chateau which has now become the ficole- 
Communal. 

Of all Joigny's architectural beauties of the 
past none takes so high a rank as its magnificent 
Gothic church of Saint Jean, whose vaultings 
are of the most remarkable known. Since the 
ruling seigneur at the time the church was re- 
built was a churchman, this is perhaps readily 
enough accounted for. It demonstrates, too. 



In the Valley of the Yonne 27 

the intimacy with which the affairs of church 
and state were bound together in those days. 
A luxurious local chateau of the purely resi- 
dential order, not a fortress, demanded a 
worthy neighbouring church, and the seigneur, 
whether or not he himself was a churchman, 
often worked hand in hand with the local prel- 
ate to see that the same was supplied and em- 
bellished in a worthy manner. This is evident 
to the close observer wherever he may rest on 
his travels throughout the old French prov- 
inces, and here at Joigny it is notably to be re- 
marked. 

Saint Fargeau, in the Commune of Joigny, is 
unknown by name and situation to the majority, 
but for a chateau-town it may well be classed 
with many better, or at least more popularly, 
known. On the principal place, or square, rises 
a warm-coloured winsome fabric which is the 
very quintessence of medisevalism. It is a more 
or less battered relic of the tenth century, and 
is built in a rosy brick, a most unusual method 
of construction for its time. 

The history of the Chateau de Saint Fargeau 
has been most momentous, its former dwellers 
therein taking rank with the most noble and 
influential of the old regime. Jacques Coeur, 
the celebrated silversmith of Bourges and the 



28 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

intimate of Charles VII, Mademoiselle de Mont- 
pensier, and the leader of the Convention — 
Lepelletier de Saint Fargeau — all lived for a 
time within its walls, to mention only three who 
have made romantic history, though widely dis- 
similar were their stations. 

An ornate park with various decorative de- 
pendencies surrounds the old chateau on three 
sides and the ensemble is as undeniably theatri- 
cal as one could hope to find in the real. In 
general the aspect is grandiose and it can read- 
ily enough be counted as one of the '' show- 
chateaux " of France, and would be were it 
better known. 

Mile, de Montpensier — 'Ma Grande Made- 
moiselle ' ' — was chatelaine of Saint Fargeau 
in the mid-seventeenth century. Her comings 
and goings, to and from Paris, were ever writ- 
ten down at length in court chronicles and many 
were the ' ' incidents " — to give them a mild 
definition — which happened here in the valley 
of the Yonne which made good reading. On 
one occasion when Mademoiselle quitted Paris 
for Saint Fargeau she came in a modest '' ca- 
rosse sans armes." It was for a fact a sort 
of sub-rosa sortie, but the historian was discreet 
on this occasion. Travel in the old days had 
not a little of romanticism about it, but for a 




?^1 



55 
CO 



O 



In the Valley of the Yonne 29 

lady of quality to travel thus was, at the time, 
a thing unheard of. This princess of blood 
royal thus, for once in her life, travelled like a 
plebeian. 

Closely bound up with the Sennonais were the 
fiefs of Auxerre and Tonnerre, whose capitals 
are to-day of that class of important provincial 
cities of the third rank which play so great a 
part in the economic affairs of modern France. 
But their present commercial status should by 
no means discount their historic pasts, nor their 
charm for the lover of old monuments, since 
evidences remain at every street corner to re- 
mind one that their origin was in the days when 
knights were bold. The railway has since come, 
followed by electric lights and automobiles, all 
of which are once and again found in curious 
juxtaposition with a bit of mediaeval or Eenais- 
sance architecture, in a manner that is surpris- 
ing if not shocking. Eegardless of the apparent 
modernity roundabout, however, there is still 
enough of the glamour of mediaevalism left to 
subdue the garishness of twentieth century in- 
novations. All this makes the charm of French 
travel, — this unlooked for combination of the 
new and the old that one so often meets. One 
can not find just this same sort of thing at 
Paris, nor on the Eiviera, nor anywhere, in 



30 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
fact, except in these minor capitals of the old 
French provinces. 

The Comte d'Anxerre was created in 1094 by 
the Roi Robert, who, after the reunion of the 
Burgnndian kingdom with the French monar- 
chy, gave it to Renaud, Comte de Nevers, as the 
dot of one, Adelais, who may have been his 
sister, or his cousin — history is not precise. 
The house of Nevers possessed the countship 
until 1182, when it came to Archambaud, the 
ninth of the name. Sire de Bourbon. One of 
his heirs married a son of the Due de Bour- 
gogne and to him brought the county of Aux- 
erre, which thus became Burgundian in fact. 
Later it took on a separate entity again, or 
rather, it allied itself with the Comtes de Ton- 
nerre at a price paid in and out of hand, it must 
not be neglected to state, of 144,400 livres Tour- 
nois. The crown of France, through the Comtes 
d'Auxerre, came next into possession, but 
Charles VII, under the treaty of Arras, ceded 
the countship in turn to Philippe-le-Bon, Due de 
Bourgogne. Definite alliance with the royal 
domain came under Louis XI, thus the prov- 
ince remained until the Revolution. 

With such a history small wonder it is that 
Auxerre has preserved more than fleeting mem- 
ories of its past. Of great civic and domestic 



In the Valley of the Yonne 31 

establishments of mediaevalism, Auxerre is 
poverty-stricken nevertheless. The Episcopal 
Palace, now the Prefecture, is the most impo- 
sing edifice of its class, and is indeed a worthy 
thing from every view-point. It has a covered 
loggia, or gallery running along its fagade, ma- 
king one think that it was built by, or for, an 
Italian, which is not improbable, since it was 
conceived under the ministership of Cardinal 
Mazarin who would, could he have had his way, 
have made all things French take on an Italian 
hue. From this loggia there is a wide-spread, 
distant view of the broad valley of the Yonne 
which here has widened out to considerable pro- 
portions. The history of this Prefectural pal- 
ace of to-day, save as it now serves its pur- 
pose as a governmental administrative build- 
ing, is wholly allied with that of Auxerre 's mag- 
nificent cathedral and its battery of sister 
churches. 

Within the edifice, filled with clerks and offi- 
cials in every cranny, all busy writing out docu- 
ments by hand and clogging the wheels of prog- 
ress as much as inefficiency can, are still found 
certain of its ancient furnishings and fittings. 
The great Salle des Audiences is still intact and 
is a fine example of thirteenth century wood- 
work. The wainscotting of its walls and ceiling 



32 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

is remarkably worked with a finesse of detail 
that would be hard to duplicate to-day except 
at the expense of a lord of finance or a king of 
petrol. Not even government contractors, no 
matter what price they are paid, could presume 
to supply anything half so fine. 

It was at Auxerre that the art and craft of 
building noble edifices developed so highly 
among churchmen. The builders of the twelfth 
century were not only often monks but church- 
men of rank as well. They occupied themselves 
not only with ecclesiastical architecture, but 
with painting and sculpture. One of the first 
of these clerical master-builders was Geoffroy, 
Bishop of Auxerre, and three of his prebend- 
arys were classed respectively as painters, 
glass-setters and metal-workers. 

The towering structure on the Place du 
Marche is to-day Auxerre 's nearest approach to 
a chateau of the romantic age, and this is only 
a mere tower to-day, a fragment left behind of 
a more extensive residential and fortified cha- 
teau which served its double purpose well in its 
time. It is something more than a mere belfry, 
or clock tower, however. It is called the Tour 
Gaillarde, and flanked at one time the principal 
breach in the rampart wall which surrounded 
the city. It is one of the finest specimens of its 




Tour Gaillarde, Auxerre 



In the Valley of the Yonne 33 

class extant, and is more than the rival of the 
great Tour de I'Horloge at Rouen or the pair 
of towers over which conventional tourists rave, 
as they do over the bears in the bear-pit, at 
Berne in Switzerland. 

The entire edifice, the tower and that portion 
which has disappeared, formed originally the 
residence of the governor of the place, the per- 
sonal representative of the counts who them- 
selves, in default of a special residence in their 
capital, were forced to lodge therein on their 
seemingly brief visits. The names of the counts 
of Tonnerre and Auxerre appear frequently in 
the historical chronicles of their time, but refer- 
ences to their doings lead one to think that they 
chiefly idled their time away at Paris. That 
this great tower made a part of some sort of 
a fortified dwelling there is no doubt, but that 
it was ever a part of a seigneurial chateau is 
not so certain. 

With respect to the part Auxerre played in 
the military science of the middle ages it is in- 
teresting to recall that the drum, or tambour, 
is claimed as of local origin, or at least that 
it was here first known in France, in the four- 
teenth century. No precise date is given and 
one is inclined to think that its use with the 
army of Edward III at Calais on the 3rd 



34 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

August, 1347, was really its first appearance 
across the Channel after all. 

Above Auxerre the Yonne divides, or rather 
takes to itself the Arman^on and the Seruin to 
swell its bulk as it flows down through the 
Auxerrois. Above lies the Avallonnais, where 
another race of seigneurs contribute an alto- 
gether different series of episodes from that of 
their neighbours. It remains a patent fact, 
however, that the cities and towns of the valley 
of the Yonne give one ample proof of the close 
alliance in manners and customs of all mid- 
France of mediaeval times. 

The inhabitants of this region are not a race 
apart, but are traditionally a blend of the 
" natural " Champenois and the " frank and 
loyal" Burgundian, — "strictly keeping to 
their promises, and with a notable probity in 
business affairs," says a proud local histo- 
rian. Here in this delightful river valley were 
bred and nourished the celebrated painter, 
Jean-Cousin; the illustrious Vauban, the 
builder of fortresses; the enigmatical Cheva- 
liere d'Eon; the artist Soufflot, architect of the 
Pantheon; Eegnault de Saint- Jean d'Angely, 
Minister of Napoleon; Bourrienne, his secre- 
tary and afterwards Minister of State under 
the Bourbons. 



In the Valley of the Yonne 35 

Following the Yonne still upwards towards 
its source one comes ultimately to Clamecy. 
Between Auxerre and Clamecy the riverside is 
strewn thickly with the remains of many an 
ancient feudal fortress or later chateaux. At 
Mailly-le-Chateau are the very scanty frag- 
ments of a former edifice built by the Comtes 
d 'Auxerre in the fifteenth century, and at 
Chatel-Censoir is another of the same class. 
At Coulanges-sur- Yonne is the debris, a tower 
merely, of what must one day have been a really 
splendid edifice, though even locally one can get 
no specific information concerning its history. 

From Clamecy the highroad crosses the 
Bazois to Chateau Chinon in the Nivernais. 
The name leads one to imagine much, but of 
chateaux it has none, though its nomenclature 
was derived from the emplacement of an an- 
cient oppidum gaulois, a castrum gallo-romain 
and later a feudal chateau. 

The road on to Burgundy lies to the south- 
west via the Avallonnais, or, leaving the water- 
shed of the Yonne for that of the upper Seine, 
via Tonnerre and Chatillon-sur-Seine lying to 
the eastward of Auxerre. 



CHAPTER III 

AVALLOISr, VEZELAY AND CHASTELLUX 

AvALLON owes its origin to the construction 
of a chateau-fort. It was built by Robert-le- 
Pieux, the son of Hugues Capet, in the tenth 
century. Little by little the fortress has crum- 
bled and very nearly disappeared. All that re- 
mains are the foundation walls on what is lo- 
cally called the Eocher d'Avallon, virtually the 
pedestal upon which sits the present city. 

Avallon, like neighbouring Semur and Veze- 
lay, sits snugly and proudly behind its rampart 
of nature's ravines and gorges, a series of mili- 
tary defences ready-made which on more than 
one occasion in mediaeval times served their 
purpose well. 

It was in the old Chateau d'Avallon that 
Jacques d'Epailly, called ^' Forte ]6pice," was 
giving a great ball when Philippe-le-Bon be- 
seiged the city. Jacques treated the inhabitants 
with the utmost disrespect, even the ladies, and 
secretly quitted the ball just before the city 

36 



Avallon, Vezelay and Chastellux 37 

troops surrendered. History says that the 
weak-hearted gallant sold out to the enemy and 
saved himself by the back door, and in spite 
of no documentary evidence to this effect the 
long arm of coincidence points to the dastardly 
act in an almost unmistakable manner. 

Near Avallon are still to be seen extensive 
Roman remains. A Roman camp, the Camp 
des Alleux, celebrated in Gaulish and Roman 
history, was here, and the old Roman road 
between Lyons and Boulogne in Belgica Secun- 
dus passed near by. 

It is not so much with reference to Avallon 
itself, quaint and picturesque as the city is, that 
one's interest lies hereabouts. More particu- 
larly it is in the neighbouring chateaux of Chas- 
tellux and Montreal. 

The Seigneur de Chastellux was one of the 
most powerful vassals of the Due de Bourgogne. 
By hereditary custom the eldest of each new 
generation presented himself before the Bishop 
of Auxerre clad in a surplice covering his mili- 
tary accoutrements, and wearing a falcon at 
his wrist. In this garb he swore to support 
Church and State, and for this devotion was 
vested in the title of Chanoin d 'Auxerre, a title 
which supposedly served him in good stead in 
case of military disaster. It was thus that the 



38 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Marechal de Chastellux, a famous warrior, was, 
as late as 1792, also a canon of the cathedral at 
Auxerre. It was, too, in this grotesque costume 
that the Chanoin-Comte d'Chastellux welcomed 
Louis XIV on a certain visit to Auxerre. At 
Auxerre, in the cathedral, one sees a monument 
commemorative of the Sires de Chastellux. 
It was erected by Cesar de Chastellux under the 
Restoration, to replace the tomb torn down by 
the Chapter in the fifteenth century. This dese- 
cration, by churchmen themselves, one must re- 
member, took place in spite of the fact that a 
Chastellux was even then a dignitary of the 
church. 

Chastellux, beyond its magnificent chateau, is 
an indefinable, unconvincing little bourg, but 
from the very moment one sets foot within its 
quaintly named Hotel de Marechal de Chastel- 
lux he, or she, is permeated with the very spirit 
of romance and mediaevalism. The bridge 
which crosses the Cure in the middle of the vil- 
lage owns to the ripe old age of three hundred 
and fifty years, and is still rendering efficient 
service. This is something mature for a bridge, 
even in France, where many are doing their 
daily work as they have for centuries. Will the 
modern " suspension " affairs do as well? 
That's what nobody knows! The hotel, or au- 




Chateau de Chastellux 



Avallon, Vezelay and Chastellux 39 

herge rather, can not be less aged than the 
bridge, though the manner in which it is con- 
ducted is not at all antiquated. 

A rocky, jagged pedestal, of a height of per- 
haps a hundred and fifty feet, holds aloft the 
fine mass of the Chateau de Chastellux. For 
eight centuries this fine old pile was in the ma- 
king and, though manifestly non-contemporary 
as to its details, it holds itself together in a re- 
markably consistent manner and presents an 
ensemble and silhouette far more satisfactory 
to view than many a more popular historic 
monument of its class. Its great round towers, 
their coiffes and the pignons and gables of the 
roof, give it all a cachet which is so striking that 
one forgives, or ignores the fact that it is after 
all a work of various epochs. 

Visitors here are welcome. One may stroll 
the corridors and apartments, the vast halls 
and the courtyard as fancy wills, except that 
one is always discreetly ciceroned by a guardian 
who may be a man, a woman, or even a small 
child. There is none of the espionage system 
about the surveillance, however, and one can but 
feel welcome. Blazons in stone and wood and 
tapestries are everywhere. They are the best, 
or the worst, of their kind; one really doesn't 
stop to think which; the effect is undeniably 



40 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

what one would wish, and surely no carping 
critic has any right to exercise his functions 
here. There is not the least cause to complain 
if the furnishings are of non-contemporary 
periods like the exterior adornments, because 
the certain stamp of sincerity and genuineness 
over all defies undue criticism. 

The Chateau de Chastellux dates, primarily, 
from the thirteenth century, with many fif- 
teenth, sixteenth and seventeenth century res- 
torations or additions which are readily enough 
to be recognized. From its inception, the cha- 
teau has belonged to the family of Beauvoir-de- 
Chastellux, the cadet branch of Anseric-de- 
Montreal. 

Practically triangular in form, as best served 
its original functions of a defensive habitation, 
this most theatrical of all Burgundian chateaux 
is flanked by four great attached towers. The 
Tour de I'Horloge is a massive rectangular pile 
of the fifteenth century; the Tour d'Amboise is 
a round tower dating from 1592; the Tour de 
1 'Hermitage and the Tour des Archives, each 
of them also round, are of the sixteenth century. 
In the disposition and massiveness of these 
towers alone the Chateau de Chastellux is 
unique. Another isolated tower, even more 
stupendous in its proportions, is known as the 



Avallon, Vezelay and Chastellux 41 

Tour Saint Jean, and is a donjon of the ideally 
acceptable variety, dating from some period 
anterior to the chateau proper. 

Moat-surrounded, the chateau is only to be 
entered by crossing an ornamental waterway. 
One arrives at the actual entrance by the usual 
all-eyed roadway ending at the perron of the 
chateau where a simple bell-pull silently an- 
nounces the ways and means of gaining en- 
trance. The domestic appears at once and with- 
out questioning your right proceeds to do the 
honours as if it were for yourself alone that the 
place were kept open. 

The chief and most splendid apartment is 
the Salle des Gardes, to a great extent restored, 
but typical of the best of fifteenth century work- 
manship and appointments. Its chimney-piece, 
as splendid in general effect as any to be seen 
in the Loire chateaux, is but a re-made affair, 
but follows the best traditions and encloses 
moreover fragments of fifteenth century sculp- 
tures which are authentically of that period. 
The cornice of this majestic apartment bears 
the Chastellux arms and those of their allied 
families, interwoven with the oft repeated in- 
scription, Monreal a Sire de Chastellux. In 
this same Salle des Gardes are hung a pair of 
ancient Gobelins, and set into the floor is a 



42 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
dainty morsel of an antique mosaic found 
nearby. 

The modem billiard-room, also shown to the 
inquisitive, contains portraits of the Chancelier 
d'Aguesseau and his wife, and its fittings — 
aside from the green baize tables and their 
accessories — are well carried out after the 
style of Louis XIII. Grood taste, or bad, one 
makes no comment, save to suggest that the 
billiard tables look out of place. 

In what the present dweller calls the Salon 
Rouge are portraits and souvenirs of a military 
ancestor Comte Cesar de Chastellux, who, judg- 
ing from his dress and cast of countenance, 
must have been a warrior bold of the conven- 
tional type. 

After the Salle des Gardes the Grand Salon 
is the most effective apartment. Its wall and 
ceiling decorations are the same that were com- 
pleted in 1696, and incorporated therein are 
fourteen portraits of the Sires and Comtes who 
one day lived and loved within these castle 
walls. These portraits are reproductions of 
others which were destroyed by the unchained 
devils of the French Eevolution who made way 
with so much valuable documentary evidence 
from which one might build up French mediae- 
val history anew. The village church contains 



Avallon, Vezelay and Chastellux 43 

several tombal monuments of the Chastel- 
lux. 

The Chateau de Montreal, or Mont-Royal, so 
closely allied with the fortunes of the Chastel- 
lux, between Avallon and Chastellux, is built 
high on a mamelon overlooking the Seruin, and 
is one of the most ancient and curious places in 
Burgundy. The little town, of but five hundred 
inhabitants, is built up mostly of the material 
which came from one of the most ancient of the 
feudal chateaux of mid-France. This chateau 
was originally a primitive fortress, once the 
residence of Queen Brunhaut, the wife of the 
Roi d'Austrasie in 566. It was from this hill- 
top residence that the name Montreal has been 
evolved. 

The sparse population of the place were bene- 
fited by special privileges from the earliest 
times and the cite movenageuse itself was en- 
dowed with many admirable examples of ad- 
ministrative and domestic architecture. 

Of the Renaissance chateaux of the later 
seigneurs, here and there many portions re- 
main built into other edifices, but there is no 
single example left which, as a whole, takes 
definite shape as a noble historical monument. 
There are a dozen old Renaissance house-fronts, 
with here and there a supporting tower or wall 



44 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

which, is unquestionably of mediaeval times and 
might tell thrilling stories could stones but 
speak. 

In Renaissance annals Montreal was cele- 
brated by the exploit of the Dame de Ragny 
(1590), who recaptured the place after it had 
been taken possession of by the Ligeurs during 
the absence of her husband, the governor. 

At the entrance of the old bourg is a great 
gateway which originally led to the seigneurial 
enclosure. It is called the Port d'en Bas and 
has arches dating from the thirteenth century. 
Montreal and its Mediaeval chateau was the 
cradle of the Anseric-de-Montreal family, who 
were dispossessed in 1255 to the profit of the 
Dues de Bourgogne. It was to the cadet 
branch of this same family Chastellux once 
belonged. 

To the west lies Vezelay, one of the most 
remarkable conglomerate piles of ancient ma- 
sonry to be seen in France to-day. It was a 
most luxurious abode in mediaeval times, and 
its great church, with its ornate portal and 
fagade, ranks as one of the most celebrated in 
Europe. 

Vezelay is on no well-worn tourist track; 
it is indeed chiefly unknown except to those who 



Avallon, Vezelay and Chastellux 45 

know well their ecclesiastical history. It was 
within this famous church that Saint Bernard 
awakened the fervour of the Crusade in the 
breast of Louis-le-Jeune. The abbey church 
saw, too, Philippe- Auguste and Richard Cceur- 
de-Lion start for their Crusades, and even Saint 
Louis came here before setting out from Aigues 
Mortes for the land of the Turk. This illustri- 
ous church quite crushes anything else in Veze- 
lay by its splendour, but nevertheless the his- 
tory of its other monuments has been great, and 
the part played by the miniscule city itself has 
been no less important in more mundane mat- 
ters. Its mediaeval trading-fairs were famous 
throughout the provinces of all France, and 
even afar. 

In the middle ages Vezelay had a population 
of ten thousand souls ; to-day a bare eight hun- 
dred call it their home town. 

The seigneurial chateau at Vezelay is hardly 
in keeping to-day with its former proud estate. 
One mounts from the lower town by a winding 
street lined on either side by admirably con- 
served Eenaissance houses of an unpretentious 
class. The chateau, where lodged Louis-le- 
Jeune, has embedded in its facade two great 
shot launched from Huguenot cannon during 



46 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

the siege of 1559. Another seigneurial '' hotel 
privee " has over its portal this inscription: 

" Comme Colorribe humble et simple seray 
Et a mon nom mes mes mceurs conformeray " 

Here in opulent Basse-Bourgogne, where the 
vassals of a seigneur were often as powerful as 
he, their dwellings were frequently quite as 
splendid as the official residence of the over- 
lord. It is this genuinely unspoiled mediaeval 
aspect of seemingly nearly all the houses of this 
curious old town of Vezelay which give the place 
its charm. 

The Porte Neuve is a great dependent tower 
which formerly was attached to the residence 
of the governor — the chateau-fort in fact — 
and it still stands militant as of old, supported 
on either side by two enormous round towers 
and surmounted by a machicoulis and a serrated 
cornice which tells much of its efficiency as a 
mediaeval defence. To the right are still very 
extensive remains of the fourteenth and fif- 
teenth century ramparts. 

Near Vezelay is the Chateau de Bazoche, 
which possesses a profound interest for the stu- 
dent of military architecture in France by 
reason of its having been the birthplace of 
Marechal Vauban, who became so celebrated as 



Avallon, Vezelay and Chastellux 47 

a fortress-builder that he, as much as anybody, 
may be considered the real welder of modern 
France. Vauban's body is buried in the local 
churchyard, but his heart had the distinction of 
being torn from his body and given a glori- 
ous ( ?) burial along with countless other frag- 
ments of military heroes in the Hotel des In- 
valides at Paris. 

Bazoches is not a name that is on the tip of 
the tongue of every mentor and guide to French 
history, though the appearance of its chateau 
is such that one wonders that it is not more 
often cited by the guide-books which are sup- 
posed to point out the quaint and curious to 
vagabond travellers. There are many such who 
had rather worship at a shrine such as this 
than to spend their time loitering about the big 
hotels of the flash resorts with which the Eu- 
rope of the average tourist is becoming over- 
crowded. Makers of guide-books and the mana- 
gers of tourist agencies do not seem to know 
this. 

Bazoches is a townlet of five hundred inhabi- 
tants, and not one of them cares whether you 
come or go. They do not even marvel that the 
chateau is the only thing in the place that ever 
brings a stranger there, — they ignore the fact 
that you are there, so by this reckoning one puts 



48 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Bazoches, the town and the chateau, down as 
something quite unspoiled. Half the population 
lives in fine old Gothic and Eenaissance houses 
which, to many of us, used to living under an- 
other species of rooftree, would seem a palace. 

What the Chateau de Bazoches lacks in great 
renown it makes up for in imposing effect. 
Each angle meets in a svelt round tower of the 
typical picture-book and stage-carpenter fash- 
ion. Each tower is coiffed with a peaked can- 
dle-snuffer cap and a row of machicoulis which 
gives the whole edifice a warlike look which is 
unmistakable. The finest detail of all is "La 
Grande Tour " supporting one end of the prin- 
ciple mass of the chateau, and half built into 
the hillside which backs it up on the rear. 
Vauban bought an old feudal castle in 1663 and 
added to it after his own effective manner, thus 
making the chateau, as one sees it to-day, the 
powerful bulwark that it is. 

The chateau belongs to-day to the Vibrave 
family, who keep open house for the visitor who 
would see within and without. The principle 
apartment is entirely furnished with the same 
belongings which served Vauban for his per- 
sonal use. 

Another neighbouring chateau, bearing also 
the name Chateau de Vauban, was also the 



Avallon, Vezelay and Chastellux 49 

property of the Marechal. It dates from the 
sixteenth century, and though in no way his- 
toric, has many architectural details worthy of 
observation and remark. 



CHAPTER IV 

SEMUR-EN-AUXOIS, EPOISSES AND BOTJEBILLY 

Due east from Avallon some thirty odd kilo- 
metres is Semur-en-Auxois. It is well described 
as a feudal city without and a banal one within. 
Its mediaeval walls and gates lead one to expect 
the same old-world atmosphere over all, but, 
aside from its churches and an occasional archi- 
tectural display of a Renaissance house-front, 
its cast of countenance, when seen from its de- 
cidedly bourgeois point of view, is, if not mod- 
ern, at least matter-of-fact and unsympathetic. 

In spite of this its historical recollections are 
many and varied, and there are fragments 
galore of its once proud architectural glories 
which bespeak their prime importance, and also 
that the vandal hand of so-called progress and 
improvement has fallen heavily on all sides. 

The site of Semur to a great extent gives it 
that far-away mediaeval look; that, at least, 
could not be taken away from it. It possesses, 
moreover, one of the most astonishing silhou- 

50 







^ 



Semur-en-Auxois, Epoisses, Bourbilly 51 

ettes of any hill-top town in France. Like Con- 
stantine in North Africa it is walled and bat- 
tlemented by a series of natural defences in the 
form of ravines or gorges so profound that cer- 
tainly no ordinary invading force could have 
entered the city. 

Semur was formerly the capital of the 
Auxois, and for some time held the same rank 
in the Burgundian Duchy, 

The city from within suggests little of medise- 
valism. Prosperity and contentment do not 
make for a picturesque and romantic environ- 
ment of the life of the twentieth century. It 
was different in the olden time. Semur, by and 
large, is of the age of medisevalism, however, 
though one has to delve below the surface to 
discover this after having passed the great 
walls and portals of its natural and artificial 
ramparts. 

Semur 's boiirg, donjon and chateau, as the 
respective quarters of the town are known, tell 
the story of its past, .but they tell it only by 
suggestion. The ancient fortifications, as en- 
tire works, have disappeared, and the chateau 
has become a barracks or a hospital. Only the 
chateau donjon and immediate dependencies, a 
group of towering walls, rise grim and silent as 
of old above the great arch of the bridge flung 



52 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

so daringly across the Armangon at the bottom 
of the gorge. 

The last proprietor of Semur's chateau was 
the Marquis du Chatelet, the husband of the 
even more celebrated Madame du Chatelet, who 
held so great a place in the life of Voltaire. 
The philosopher, it seems, resided here for a 
time, and his room is still kept sacred and 
shown to visitors upon application. 

Semur as much as anything is a reminder of 
the past rather than a living representation of 
what has gone before. Within the city walls 
were enacted many momentous events of state 
while still it was the Burgundian capital. 
Again during the troublous times of the 
'' Ligue," Henri IV transferred to its old 
chateau the Parliament which had previously 
held its sittings at Dijon. 

Semur's monuments deserved a better fate 
than has befallen them, for they were magnifi- 
cent and epoch-making, if not always from an 
artistic point of view, at least from an historic 
one. 

We made Semur our headquarters for a little 
journey to fipoisses, Bourbilly and Montbard, 
where formerly lived and died the naturalist 
Buffon, in the celebrated Chateau de Montbard. 

ilpoisses lies but a few kilometres west of 



Semur-en-Auxois, Epoisses, Bourbilly 53 

Semur. Its chateau is a magnificently artistic 
and historic shrine if there ever was such. In 
1677 Madame de Sevigne wrote that she ' ' here 
descended from her carriage : chez son Seigneur 
d' Epoisses.'''' Here she found herself so com- 
fortably off that she forgot to go on to Bour- 
billy, where she was expected and daily awaited. 
It was ten days later that she finally moved on ; 
so one has but the best of opinions regarding 
the good cheer which was offered her. At the 
time it must have been an ideal country house, 
this mansion of the Seigneur d'li^poisses, as in- 
deed it is to-day. The lady wrote further: 
'* Here there is the greatest liberty; one reads 
or walks or talks or works as he, or she, 
pleases." This is what everyone desires and 
so seldom gets when on a visit. As for the 
other natural and artificial charms which sur- 
rounded the place, one may well judge by a 
contemplation of it to-day. 

Here in the chateau, or manor, or whatever 
manner of rank it actually takes in one's mind, 
you may see the room occupied by Madame de 
Sevigne on the occasion of her *' pleasant 
visit." It is a *' Chambre aux Fleurs " in 
truth, and that, too, is the name by which the 
apartment is officially known. 

Above the mantel, garlanded with flowers 



54 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
carved in wood, one reads the following attrib- 
uted to the fascinating Marquise herself. The 
circumstance is authenticated in spite of the 
fantastic orthography. As a letter writer, at 
any rate, she made no such faults. 

" Nos plaisirs ne sont capparence 
Et souvent se cache nos pleurs 
Sous r eclat de ces belles Jleurs 
Qui ne sont que vaine eperance." 

The Chateau de Bourbilly, where Madame de 
Sevigne was really bound at the time she lin- 
gered on '' ches son cJier seigneur/' is a near 
neighbour of Epoisses. It was the retreat of 
Madame de Chantal, the ancestress of Madame 
de Sevigne, the founder of the Order of the 
Visitation who has since become a saint of the 
church calendar — Sainte Jeanne-de-Chantal. 

This fine seventeenth century chateau, with 
its pointed towers and its mansard, belonged 
successively to the families Marigny, de Mello, 
de Thil, de Savace, de la Tremouille and Eabu- 
tin-Chantel, of which the sanctified Jeanne and 
Madame de Sevigne were the most illustrious 
members. 

Madame de Sevigne, the amiable letter 
writer, sojourned here often on her voyages up 
and down France. She herself lived in the 



Semur-en-Auxois, Epoisses, Bourbilly 55 

Chateau des Eochers in Brittany and her 
daughter, the Comtesse de Grignan, in Pro- 
vence, and they did not a little visiting between 
the two. Bourbilly was a convenient and de- 
lightful halfway house. 

Madame de Sevigne can not be said to have 
made Bourbilly her residence for long at any 
time. For a fact she was as frequently a guest 
at the neighbouring Chateau de Guitant, a 
feudal dwelling still inhabited by the de Gui- 
tants, or at Epoisses, as she was at Bourbilly. 

In the chapel, which is of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, is the tomb of the Baron de Bussy-Eabutin 
and some reliques of Sainte-Jeanne-de-Chantal. 
The latter has served to make of Bourbilly a 
pilgrim shrine which, on the 21st August, draws 
a throng from all parts for the annual fete. 

There was a popular impression long current 
among French writers that Madame de Sevigne 
was born in the Chateau de Bourbilly. A line 
or two of that indefatigable penman, Bussy, 
tended to make this ready of belief when he 
wrote of his cousin as '^ Une demoiselle de 
Bourgogne egaree en Bretagne." She herself 
claimed to have been " transplanted," but it 
was a transplantation by marriage; she was 
most certainly not born at Bourbilly, at any 
rate, for history, better informed than an un- 



56 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

convincing scribbler, states that she was born 
in Paris, like Moliere and Voltaire, who also 
have finally been claimed by the capital as her 
own. 

At all events, at Bourbilly Madame de Se- 
vigne was true enough on the land of the 
" vieux chateau de ses peres, ses belles prairies, 
sa petite riviere, ses magnifiques hois." It was 
her property in fact, or came to be, and she 
might have lived there had she chosen. She 
would not dispose of it when importuned to do 
so, and replied simply, but coldly (one reads 
this in the '' Letters "), ''I will not sell the 
property for the reason that I wish to hand 
it down to my daughter. ' ' From this one would 
think that she had a great affection for it, but 
at times it was a " vieux chateau " and at 
others it was a " horrible maison." Capricious 
woman! The letters of Madame de Sevigne 
written from here were not numerous, as she 
only '' stopped over " on her various journey- 
ings. When one recognizes the tastes and hab- 
its of the Marquise, it is not to be wondered at 
that her visits to Bourbilly were neither pro- 
longed nor multiplied. 

Turning one's itinerary south from Semur 
one comes shortly to Cussy-la-Colonne, where 
*' la Colonne " is recognized by the archaeolo- 



Semur-en-Auxois, Epoisses, Bourbilly 57 

gists as one of the most celebrated and most 
ancient monuments of Burgundy. 

One learns from the inscription in Franco- 
Latin that the ancient monument {antiquissi- 
mum hoc monumentum) , much damaged by the 
flapping wings of time, was rebuilt, as nearly as 
possible in its original form, by a prefect of 
the Department of the Cote d'Or (Collis Aurei 
Praefectus), M, Charles Arbaud, in the reign 
(sous 1 'empire) of Charles X (imperante Ca- 
rolo X. . . . Anno Salutis MDCCCXXV. An 
astonishing melange this of the tongue of 
Cicero and modern administrative patois. 

The Colonne de Cussy, is rather a pagan 
memorial of a victory of the Eomans in the 
reign of Diocletian, or, from another surmise, a 
funeral monument to a Eoman general dead on 
the eve of victory. In either case, there it 
stands fragmentary and wind and weather worn 
like the pillars of Hercules or Pompey. 

One simply notes Cussy and its '' colonne " 
en passant on the road to Saulieu and Arnay-le- 
Duc, where the Dues de Bourgogne had one of 
their most favoured country houses, or manors. 

We only stopped at Saulieu by chance any^ 
way; we stopped for the night in fact because 
it was getting too late to push on farther, and 
we were glad indeed that we did. 



58 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Saulieu is a most ancient town and owes its 
name to a neighbouring wood. Here was first 
erected a pagan temple to the sun; fragments 
of it have recently been found; and here one 
may still see the tracings of the old Eoman way 
crossing what was afterwards, — to the power- 
ful colony at Autun, — the Duchy of Burgundy. 

As a fortified place Saulieu was most potent, 
but in 1519 a pest destroyed almost its total 
population. Disaster after disaster fell upon it 
and the place never again achieved the promi- 
nence of its neighbouring contemporaries. 

It was here at Saulieu in Eevolutionary times 
that the good people, as if in remembrance of 
the disasters which had befallen them under 
monarchial days, hailed with joy the arrival of 
the men of the Marseilles Battalion as they were 
marching on Paris '' to help capture Capet's 
castle." Before the church of Saint Saturnin 
the Patriots ' Club had lighted a big bonfire, and 
the '' Men of the Midi " were received with 
open arms and a warm welcome. 

'' How good they were to us at Saulieu," 
said one of the number, recounting his adven- 
tures upon his arrival at Paris; '' they gave 
us all the wine we could swallow and all the 
good things we could eat, — we had enough 
boeuf-a-la-daub to rise over our ears ..." 



Bemur-en-Auxois, Epoisses, Bourbilly 59 

To-day the good folk of Saulieu treat the 
stranger in not unsimilar fashion, and though 
the town lacks noble monuments it makes up 
for the deficiency in its good cheer. Saulieu in 
this respect quite lives up to its reputation of 
old. This little capital of the Morvan-Bour- 
guignon has ever owned to one or more distin- 
guished Vatel's. Madame de Sevigne, in 1677, 
stopped here at a friend's country house, and, 
as she wrote, " le fermier donne a tous un grand 
diner." This was probably the Manoir de 
Guitant between Bourbilly and Saulieu. They 
were long at table, for it was a diner des adieux 
given by her friend Gruitant to his visitors. She 
wrote further : ' ' With the dinner one drank a 
great deal, and afterwards a great deal more; 
all went off with the greatest possible eclat. 
Voila 1 'affaire ! ' ' 

Evidently such a manner of parting did not 
produce sadness! 

A donjon tower with a duck-pond before it, 
opposite the Hotel de la Poste is all the mediae- 
valism that one sees within the town at Saulieu 
to-day. It is all that one's imagination can 
conjure up of the ideal donjon of medisevalism 
and interesting withal, though its history is 
most brief, indeed may be said to exist not at 
all in recorded form, for the chief references to 



60 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Saulieu's historic past date back to the pagan 
temple and the founding of the Abbey of Saint 
Andoche in the eighth century. 

Still heading south one comes in a dozen kilo- 
metres to a chateau of the fourteenth century, 
and the restorations of Henri IV at Thoisy-la- 
Berchere. Later restorations, by the Marquis 
de Montbossier, who occupies it to-day, have 
made of it one of the most attractive of the 
minor chateaux of France. One may visit it 
under certain conditions, whether the family is 
in residence or not, and will carry away memo- 
ries of many splendid chimney pieces and wall 
tapestries. For the rest the furnishings are 
modern, which is saying that they are banal. 
This of course need not always be so, but when 
the Renaissance is mixed with the art nouveau 
and the latest fantasies of Dufayal it lacks ap- 
peal. This is as bad as ' ' Empire ' ' and ' ' Mis- 
sion," which seem to have set the pace for 
" club furniture " during the past decade. 

Amay-le-Duc still to the south was the site 
of a ducal Burgundian manor which almost 
reached the distinction of a palace. Here the 
country loving dukes spent not a little of their 
leisure time when away from their capital. 

Arnay-le-Duc, more than any other town of 
its class in France, retains its almost undefiled 




a::^-::!-;:— .'-s-"--: 






Semur-en-Auxois, Epoisses, Bourbilly 61 

feudal aspect to-day when viewed from beyond 
the walls. Formerly it was the seat of a hail- 
liage and has conserved the debris of the feudal 
official residence. This is supported in addition 
by many fine examples of Renaissance-Burgun- 
dian architectural treasures which give the 
town at once the stamp of genuineness which it 
will take many years of progress to wholly 
eradicate. 

None of these fine structures, least of all the 
ducal manor, is perfectly conserved, but the 
remains are sufficiently ample and well cared 
for to merit the classification of still being 
reckoned habitable and of importance. The old 
manor of the dukes has now descended to more 
humble uses, but has lost little of the aristo- 
cratic bearing which it once owned. 

It was near this fortified bourgade of other 
days — fortified that the dukes might rest in 
peace when they repaired thither — that the in- 
fant Henri IV, at the age of sixteen, received 
his baptism of fire and first gained his stripes 
under the direction of Marechal de Cosse- 
Brissac. 



CHAPTER V 

MONTBAED AND BUSSY - EABUTIN 

MoNTBAED lies Hiidway between Semur and 
Chatillon-sur-Seine, on the great highroad lead- 
ing from Burgundy into Champagne. The old 
Chateau de Montbard is represented only by the 
donjon tower which rises grimly above the 
modern edifice built around its base and the 
sprawling little town which clusters around its 
park gates at the edge of the tiny river Brenne. 

The " grand seigneur " of Montbard was but 
a simple man of letters, the naturalist Buffon. 
Here he found comfort and tranquillity, and 
loved the place and its old associations accord- 
ingly. Here he lived, " having doffed his 
sword and cloak," and occupied himself only 
with his literary labours, though with a gallan- 
try and esprit which could but have produced 
the eloquent pages ascribed to him. 

Buffon was a native of the town, and through 
him, more than anyone else, the town has since 
been heard of in history. 

Having acquired the property of the old 

62 



Montbard and Bussy-Rabutin 63 

chateau, the donjon of which stood firm and 
broad on its base, he made of the latter his 
study, or salon de travail. This is the only 
remaining portion of the mediaeval castle of 
Montbard. The ancient walls which existed, 
though in a ruined state, were all either levelled 
or rebuilt by Buffon into the dependent dwell- 
ing which he attached to the donjon. The Rev- 
olution, too, did not a little towards wiping out 
a part of the structure, as indeed it did the tomb 
of the naturalist in the local churchyard. 

Buffon, or, to give him his full title, Georges- 
Louis-Leclerc-de-Buffon lived here a life of re- 
tirement, amid a comfort, perhaps even of lux- 
ury, that caused his jealous critics to say that 
he worked in a velvet coat, and that he was 
a sort of eighteenth century ^' nature-fakir." 
This is probably an injustice. 

In 1774 Louis XV made the ^^ terre de Buf- 
fon " a countship, but the naturalist chose not 
to reside in the village of the name, but to live 
at Montbard some leagues away. 

Montbard 's actual celebrity came long before 
the time of Butf on, for its chateau was built in 
the fourteenth century and was for centuries 
the possessor of an illustrious sequence of an- 
nals intimately associated with the dukedom of 
Burgundy. 



64 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Jean-Sans-Peur, it is to be noted, passed a 
portion of his youth within its walls. This 
gives it at once rank as a royal chateau, though 
that was not actually its classification. The 
Princesse Anne, sister of Philippe le Bon, here 
married the Duke of Bedford in 1423. All this 
would seem fame enough for Montbard, but the 
local old men and women know no more of their 
remote rulers than they do of Buff on; local 
pride is a very doubtful commodity. 

It is disconcerting for a stranger to accost 
some hon homme or honne femme to learn the 
way to the Chateau de Buffon, and to receive in 
reply a simple stare and the observation, ^' I 
don't know the man." Aside, to some crony, 
you may hear the observation, ''Who are 
these strangers and what do they want with 
their man Buffon anyway? " This may seem 
an exaggeration, but it is not, and furthermore 
the thing may happen anywhere. Glory is but 
as smoke, and local fame is often an infinitesi- 
mal thing. Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vani- 
tas! 

Buffon wrote his extensive " Histoire Na- 
turelle " at Montbard. It created much admi- 
ration at the time. To-day Buffon, his work 
and his chateau are all but forgotten or ignored, 
and but few visitors come to continue the idol- 



Montbard and Bussy-Rabutin 65 

atry of Jean Jacques Kousseau, who kissed the 
'* seuil de la noble demure." 

Not long since, within some few years at any 
rate, a former friend of Alfred de Musset 
quoted some little known lines of the poet on 
this '^ berceau de la histoire naturelle/' with 
the result that quite recently the local authori- 
ties, in establishing the Musee Buff on, have 
caused them to be carved on a panel in the 
naturalist's former study at the chateau. 

« Buffon, que ton ombre pardonne 
A une t^m^rit^ 
D'ajouter une fleur a la double couronne 
Que sur ton front mit I'lmmortalit^." 

Buffon 's additions to the old chateau were 
made for comfort, whatever they may have 
lacked of romanticism. The French Pliny was 
evidently not in the least romantically inclined, 
or he would not have levelled these historic 
walls and the alleyed walks and gardens laid 
out in the profuse and formal manner of those 
of Italy. The result is a poor substitute for 
a picturesque grass-grown ruin, or a faithfully 
restored mediaeval castle. 

Between the Brenne and a canal which flows 
through the town rises an admirable feudal 
tower indicating the one time military and 



66 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
strategic importance of the site. It is called 
Mont Bard, and marks where once stood the 
fortress that surrendered in its time to the 
" Ligueurs." 

Near Montbard is a hamlet which bears the 
illustrious name of Buffon, but it is doubtful if 
even a few among its three hundred inhabitants 
know for whom it is named. 

Still further away, on the Chatillon road, is 
the little town of Villaines-en-Dumois, a bourg 
of no importance in the life of modernity. It 
is somnolent to an extreme, comfortable-look- 
ing and apparently prosperous. The grand 
route from Paris to Dijon passes it by a dozen 
kilometres to the left, and the railway likewise. 
Coaching days left it out in the cold also, and 
modern travel hardly laiows that it exists. 

In spite of this the town owns to something 
more than the trivial morsels of stone which 
many a township locally claims as a chateau. 
Here was once a favourite summer residence of 
the Burgundian dukes, and here to-day the 
shell, or framework, of the same edifice looks as 
though it might easily be made habitable. The 
property came later to the Madame de Longue- 
ville, the sister of the Grand Conde. There is 
nothing absolutely magnificent about it now, 
but the suggestion of its former estate is still 



Montbard and Bussy-Rabutin 67 

there to a notable degree. The walls and tow- 
ers, lacking roofs though they do, well suggest 
the princely part the edifice once played in the 
life of its time. 

In spite of the fact that the name of the town 
appears in none of the red or blue backed guide- 
books, enough is known of it to establish it as 
the former temporary seat of one of the most 
formal of the minor courts of Europe, where — 
the records tell — etiquette was as strict as in 
the ducal palace at Dijon. Four great round 
towers are each surrounded by a half-filled 
moat, and the suggestion of the old chapel, in 
the shape of an expanse of wall which shows 
a remarkably beautiful ogival window, defi- 
nitely remains to give the idea of the former 
luxury and magnificence with which the whole 
structure was endowed. 

A detached dwelling, said to be the house of 
the prior of a neighbouring monastery who at- 
tached himself to the little court, is in rather 
a better state of preservation than the chateau 
itself, and might indeed be made habitable by 
one with a modest purse and a desire to play 
the " grand seigneur " to-day in some petty 
gone-to-seed community. These opportunities 
exist all up and down France to-day, and this 
seems as likely a spot as any for one who 



68 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

wishes to transplant Hs, or her, household 
gods. 

Beyond Montbard is Les Laumes, a minor 
railway junction on the line to Dijon, which is 
scarcely ever remembered by the traveller who 
passes it by. But, although there is nothing 
inspiring to be had from even a glance of the 
eye in any direction as one stops a brief mo- 
ment at the station, nevertheless it is a prolific 
centre for a series of historical pilgrimages 
which, for pleasurable edification, would make 
the traveller remember it all his life did he give 
it more than a passing thought. One must 
know its history though, or many of the historic 
souvenirs will be passed by without an impres- 
sion worth while. 

On Mont Auxois, rising up back of the town, 
stands a colossal statue of Vercingetorix, in 
memory of a resistance which he here made 
against the usually redoubtable Caesar. 

Six kilometres away there is one of the most 
romantically historic of all the minor chateaux 
of France and one not to be omitted from any- 
body's chateaux tour of France. It is the 
Chateau de Bussy-Rabutin, to-day restored and 
reinhabited, though for long periods since its 
construction it was empty save for bats and 
mice. This restoration, which looks to-day like 



Montbard and Bussy-Rabutin 69 

a part of the original fabric, was the conceit 
of the Comte de Bussy-Eabutin, a cousin of 
Madame de Sevigne in the seventeenth century. 
It gives one the impression of being an exact 
replica of a seigneurial domain of its time. 

The main fabric is a vast square edifice with 
four towers, each marking one of the cardinal 
points. The Tour du Donjon to the east, and 
the Tour de la Chapelle to the west are bound 
to a heavy ungainly fagade which the Comte 
Roger de Bussy-Rabutin built in 1649. This 
ligature is a sort of a galleried arcade which 
itself dates from the reign of Henri II. 

As to its foundation the chateau, probably 
dates from an ancestor who came into being in 
the twelfth century. In later centuries it fre- 
quently changed hands, until it came to Leon- 
ard du Rabutin, Baron d'Epiry, and father of 
the Comte Roger who did the real work of 
remodelling. It was this Comte Roger who has 
gone down to fame as the too-celebrated cousin 
of Madame de Sevigne. To-day, the chateau 
belongs to Madame la Comtesse de Sarcus and 
although it is perhaps the most historic, at 
least in a romantic sense, of all the great Re- 
naissance establishments of these parts, it is 
known to modern map-makers as the Chateau 
de Savoigny. Much of its early history is 



70 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

closely bound with that picturesque owner, 
Comte de Bussy-Babutin. 

In Holy Week in 1657, at the age of forty- 
one, Bussy became involved in some sort of a 
military scandal and was exiled from France, 
The following year he made peace with the 
powers that be and returned to court, when he 
composed the famous, or infamous, " Histoire 
Amoureuse des Gaules," a work of supposed 
great wit and satirical purport, but scandalous 
to a degree unspeakable. It was written to 
curry favour with a certain fair lady, the Mar- 
quise de Monglat, who had an axe to grind 
among a certain coterie of court favourites. 
Bussy stood her in great stead and the scheme 
worked to a charm up to a certain point, when 
Louis XIV, not at all pleased with the un- 
seemly satire, hurried its unthinking, or too 
willing, author off to the Bastile and kept him 
there for five years, that no more of his lucu- 
brations of a similar, or any other, nature 
should see the light. 

In 1666 Bussy got back to his native land 
and was again heard of by boiling over once 
more with similar indiscretions at Chazeu, near 
Autun. Finally he got home to the chateau 
and there remained for sixteen consecutive 
years, not a recluse exactly, and yet not daring 



Montbard and Bussy-Rabutin 71 

to show his head at Paris. It was a long time 
before he again regained favour in royal cir- 
cles. 

The Cour d'Honneur of the chateau is 
reached by a monumental portal which trav- 
erses the middle of the corps du logis. Above 
this are two marble busts, one of Sainte- 
Jeanne-de-Chantal, which came originally from 
the Convent de Visitation at Dijon, and the 
other of Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV. 

The ancient Salle des Devises (now the mod- 
ern billiard room) has a very beautiful pave- 
ment of hexagonal tiles, and a series of alle- 
gorical devises which Bussy had painted in 
1667 by way of reproach to one of his feminine 
admirers. On other panels are painted various 
reproductions of royal chateaux and a portrait 
of Bussy with his emblazoned arms. 

The Salon des Grands Hommes de Guerre, 
on the second floor, is well explained by its 
name. Its decorations are chiefly interlaced 
monograms of Bussy and the Marquise Mon- 
glat, setting off sixty odd portraits of famous 
French warriors, from Duguesclin and Dunois 
to Bussy himself, who, though more wielder of 
the pen than the sword, chose to include him- 
self in the collection. Some of these are orig- 
inals, contemporary with the period of their 



72 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
subjects ; others are manifestly modern copies 
and mediocre at that, though the array of ef- 
figies is undeniably imposing. 

The Ohambre Sevigne, as one infers, is con- 
secrated to the memory of the most famous 
letter writer of her time. For ornamentation 
it has twenty-six portraits, one or more being 
by Mignard, while that of '^ La Grande Made- 
moiselle," who became the Duchesse de Berry, 
is by Coypel. 

Below a portrait of Madame de Sevigne, 
Bussy caused to be inscribed the following: 
*' Marie de Eabutin: vive agreable et sage, 
fiUe de Celse Beninge de Rabutin et Marie de 
Coulanges et femme de Henri de Sevigne." 
This, one may be justified in thinking, is quite 
a biography in brief, the sort of a description 
one might expect to find in a seventeenth cen- 
tury '' Who's Who." 

Beneath the portrait of her daughter — 
Comtesse de Grignan — the inscription reads 
thus: ** Fran§oise de Sevigne; jolie, amiable, 
enfin marchant sur les pas de sa mere sur le 
chapitre des agreements, fille de Henri de Se- 
vigne et de Marie de Rabutin et femme du 
Comte de Grignan." A rather more extended 
biography than the former, but condensed 
withal. 



Montbard and Bussy-Rabutin 73 

Another neighbouring room is known as the 
Petite Chambre Sevigne, and contains some ad- 
mirable sculptures and paintings. 

Leading to the famous Tour Doree is a long 
gallery furnished after the style of the time of 
Henri II, whilst a great circular room in the 
tower itself is richly decorated and furnished, 
including two faisceaux of six standards, each 
bearing the Bussy colours. 

Legend and fable have furnished the motive 
of the frescoes of this curious apartment, and 
under one of them, " Cephale et Procris," in 
which one recognizes the features of Bussy and 
the Marquise, his particular friend, are the 
following lines: 

" Eprouver si sa femme a le coeur pr^cieux, 
C'est §tre impertinent autant que curieux : 
Un pen d'obscurit^ vaut, en cette matiere, 
Mille fois mieux que la lumiere." 

Not logical, you say, and unprincipled. Just 
that ! But as a documentary expression of the 
life of the times it is probably genuine. 

Here and elsewhere on the walls of the cha- 
teau are many really worthy works of art, por- 
traits by Mignard, Lebrun, Just, and others, 
including still another elaborate series of four- 
teen, representing Eichelieu, Louis XIII, Anne 



74 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

d'Autriche, Mazarin, Louis XIV, Again in the 
plafond of the great tower are other frescoes 
representing the " Petits Amours " of the 
time, always with the interlaced cyphers of 
Bussy and Madame la Comtesse. 

From the Chambre Sevigne a gallery leads 
to the tribune of the chapel. Here is a portrait 
"gallery of the kings of the third race, of the 
parents of Bussy, and of the four Burgundian 
dukes and duchesses of the race of Valois. The 
chapel itself is formed of a part of the Tour 
Eonde where are two canvasses of Poussin, a 
Murillo and one of Andrea del Sarto. 

The gardens and Park of the chateau are 
attributed to Le Notre, the garden-maker of 
Versailles. This may or may not be so, the as- 
sertion is advanced cautiously, because the 
claim has so often falsely been made of other 
chateau properties. The gardens here, how- 
ever, were certainly conceived after Le Notre 's 
magnificent manner. There is a great orna- 
mental water environing the chateau some 
sixty metres in length and twelve nietres in 
width, and this of itself is enough to give great 
distinction to any garden-plot. 



CHAPTER VI 

" CHASTILLON AU NOBLE DUG *' 
(The War Cry of the Bourguignons) 

The importance of the ancient Chastillon on 
the banks of the Seine was entirely due to the 
prominence given to it by the Burgundian 
dukes of the first race who made it their pre- 
ferred habitation. 

The place was the ancient capital of the Bail- 
liage de la Montague, the rampart and keep to 
the Burgundian frontier from the tenth to the 
fifteenth century. 

The origin of the Chateau des Dues is blan- 
keted in the night of time. Savants, even, can 
not agree as to the date of its commencement. 
One says that it and its name were derived 
from Castico, a rich Sequanais; and another 
that it comes from Castell, an enclosed place; 
or from Castellio — a small fortress. Each 
seems plausible in the absence of anything 
more definite, though according to the castle's 
latest historian it owes its actual inception to 

75 



76 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

the occupation of the Komans who did build a 
castrmn here in their time. 

During the pourparlers between Henri IV 
and the League, the inhabitants of the city de- 
manded of Nicolas de Gellan, governor of the 
place, the giving up of the castle which had for 
years been the cause of so much misery and 
misfortune. The place had been the culmina- 
tive point of the attacks of centuries of war- 
riors, and the inhabitants believed that they had 
so suffered that it was time to cry quits. 

When the surrender, or the turning over, 
of the castle took place, all the population, 
including women and children, marched en 
masse upon the structure, and wall by wall and 
stone by stone dismantled it, leaving it in the 
condition one sees it to-day. A castle of sorts 
still exists, but it is a mere wraith of its former 
self. There is this much to say for it, however, 
and that is that its stern, grim walls which still 
stand remain as silent witnesses to the fact that 
it was not despoiled from without but demol- 
ished from within. Peace came soon after, and 
the people in submitting to the new regime 
would not hear of the rebuilding of the chateau, 
and so for three hundred years its battered 
walls and blank windows have stood the stresses 
of rigorous winters and broiling summers, a 







Chateau des Dues, Chdtillon 



" Chastillon au Noble Due " 77 

silent and conspicuous monument to the rights 
of the people. 

The majestic tower of the chateau, for some- 
thing more than the mere outline of the ground- 
plan still exists, is bound to two others by a 
very considerable expanse of wall of the don- 
jon, and by the courtines which formerly joined 
the bastions with the main structure. 

The suggestion of the ample inner court is 
still there, and the foundations of still two other 
towers, as well as various ruined walls. A 
neighbouring edifice, the buildings formerly oc- 
cupied by the Canons of Saint Vorles, is inex- 
plicably intermingled with the ruins of the cha- 
teau in a way that makes it difficult to tell where 
one leaves off and the other begins. The chevet 
of the Eglise de Saint Vorles and its church- 
yard also intermingle with the confines of the 
chateau in an extraordinary manner. To say 
the least, the juxtaposition of things secular and 
ecclesiastic is the least bit incongruous. 

Chatillon's Tour de Gissey, practically an 
accessory to the chateau, is a noble work whose 
well-preserved existence is due entirely to the 
solidity of its construction. Its lower ranges 
are of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but 
its upper gallery and its row of meurtrieres 
were due to the military engineers of Henri IV 



78 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

who sought to make it the better serve the pur- 
pose of their royal master. 

Within this tower are two fine apartments, 
of which the upper, known as the Salle des 
Gardes, was, before the Eevolution, the sepul- 
chre of certain wealthy neighbouring fami- 
lies. 

Within the limits of the plot which surrounds 
the chateau, the church and the tower, is the 
tomb of Marechal Marmont, Due de Raguse. 

The present edifice at Chatillon occupied by 
the Sous-Prefecture was built, as a plaque on 
the wall indicates, by Madame la Comtesse de 
Langeac in 1765. It is a fine example of the 
architecture of the period which, in spite of 
glaring inconsistencies to be noted once and 
again, is unquestionably most effective, and sug- 
gests that after all the chateau filled its pur- 
pose well as a great town house of a wealthy 
noble. The building plays a public part to-day, 
and if it serves its present purpose half as well 
as its former, no one should complain. Within 
this really superb and palatial structure is still 
to be seen the magnificent stairway of forged 
iron of the period of Louis XVI. Besides this 
are various apartments with finely sculptured 
wooden panels and rafters of the same epoch, 
all of which accessories were brought thither 



" Chastillon au Noble Due " 79 

from the nearby Chateau de Courcelles-les- 
Ranges, demolished during the Eevolution. 

The Chateau de Marmont at Chatillon was 
formerly the princely residence of the Marechal 
de Marmont, rebuilt from the fifteenth century 
chatelet occupied by the Sires de Rochefort, 
who were simply the appointed chatelains of 
the Due de Bourgogne, to whom the property 
really belonged. 

In various successive eras the edifice was 
transformed, or added to, until it took its pres- 
ent form, the gradual transformation leaving 
little or no trace of its original plan. 

The Marechal de Marmont, one of Chatillon 's 
most illustrious sons, would have transformed 
his native city into a Burgundian Versailles, or 
at least a " Garden City." He did found a 
great agricultural enterprise, of which the cha- 
teau, its gardens and its park, formed the pivot. 
Too enterprising for his times, the Due de Ea- 
guse saw himself ruined, and then came the 
German invasion of '71, when, in a combat with 
the Garibaldians, the chateau was burned. 

Chatillon has perpetuated the name of its 
great man in the public place, and also by nam- 
ing one of the principal streets for him, but has 
not yet erected a statue to him. This indeed 
may be a blessing in disguise. Statues in trou- 



80 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

sers are seldom dignified, and this noble duke 
lived too late for cloak and sword or suit ar- 
mour. 

The Chateau de Marmont, so called even to- 
day, was rebuilt after the fire and now serves 
a former Maire of the city as his private resi- 
dence. 

Chatillon-sur-Seine was — though all the 
world seems to have forgotten or ignored it — 
the seat of a convention in 1814 which proposed 
leaving France its original territorial limits of 
1792, a proposition of the ambassadors which 
was utterly rejected by Napoleon. 

Albeit that Chatillon lies on the banks of the 
Seine it is well within the confines of Burgundy. 
Eoundabout is a most fascinating and little ex- 
ploited region. 

Thirty kilometres to the north is Bar-sur- 
Seine and to the northwest Brienne-le-Chateau, 
where the Corsican first learned the rudiments 
of the art of war. 

'' La grand'ville de Bar-sur-Seine a fait 
trembler Troyes en Champaigne! " Poor 
grand'ville! To-day it is withered and all but 
dried up and blown away. Poor grand'ville! 
It is the same of which Froissart recounts that 
it lost in one day the houses of nine hundred 
" nobles et de riches bourgeois " by fire. "With- 



** Chastillon au Noble Due " 81 

out doubt these houses were of wooden frames 
and offered but little resistance to fire, as the 
period was 1359. Afterwards the town was 
rebuilt and became again populous and rich. 
Then began the decadence, until to-day it is the 
least populous "' chef -lieu " of the department. 
Its population is, and ever has been, part Bour- 
guignon and part Champagnois, the latter prov- 
ince being but a league to the northward, where, 
on the actual boundary, is found the curiously 
named little village of Bourguignons. 

South from Chatillon, across the great forest 
of the same name, one of the great national for- 
ests of France so paternally cared for by the 
Minister for Agriculture, is the actual source 
of the Seine. Here is what the engineers call a 
" Chateau d'Faux," though there is little 
enough of the real chateau of romance about 
it. It is simply a head-house with an iron grille 
and various culverts and canals and what not 
which lead the bubbling waters of the Seine to 
a wider bed lower down, there to continue their 
way, via Paris, to the sea. 

A classic sculpture, typifying the Source of 
the Seine, has been erected commemorating the 
achievement of the engineers, but appropriate 
as the sentiment is it has not prevented the dis- 
honouring hand of that abominable certain 



82 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
class of tourist of graving its names and dates 
thereon. 

The Seine at this point is nothing very ma- 
jestic. It is simply a " humhle filet que le nain 
vert, Oheron, francherait d'un bond sans mouil- 
ler ses grelots." All Frenchmen, and Paris- 
ians in particular, have a reverence for every 
kilometre of the swift-flowing waters of the 
Seine. This is perhaps difficult for the stranger, 
who may be familiar with greater if less his- 
toric streams at home, to appreciate until he 
has actually discussed the thing with some 
Frenchman. Then he learns that it is the 
Frenchman's Niagara, Mississippi and Yosem- 
ite and Pike's Peak all rolled into one so far as 
his worship goes. 

Midway between Chatillon and the source is 
Duesme, a smug, unheard of little hamlet, the 
successor of a feudal bourg of great renown 
in its day. The sparse ruined walls still sug- 
gest the pride of place which it once held when 
capital of the powerful Burgundian Countship 
of Duesme. Its walls are still something more 
than mere outlines, but the manorial residence 
has become one of those " walled farms," so 
called, so frequently seen, and so unexpectedly, 
in the countryside of France. Here and there a 
gate-post, a wall or a gable, is as of old, and two 



*' Chastillon au Noble Due " 83 

great ornamental vases support the entrance 
to the alleyed row of trees which leads from the 
highroad to the dwelling, suggesting, if in a 
vague way, the old adage, " Other days, other 
ways." 

The fall of this fine old feudal residence has 
been great, but the present occupant — if he has 
a thought or care for such things — must be 
content indeed with such a princely farm-house. 
It must be a fine thing to raise chickens and 
other barn-yard livestock amid such surround- 
ings! 



CHAPTEE VII 

TONNEREE, TANLAY AND ANCY - LE - FEANC 

The origin of Tonnerre was due to a chateau- 
fort built here on the right bank of the Arman- 
Qon, surrounded by a groupment of huddling 
dwellings which, in turn, were enclosed by a 
corselet wall of ramparts, 

Tonnerre grew to its majority through the 
ambitions of a powerful line of counts who 
made the original fortress which they con- 
structed the centre of a tiny capital of a feudal 
kingdom in miniature. From the suzerainty of 
the Sennonais, of which it was a county, Ton- 
nerre came to bear the same title under control 
of the Burgundians, in whose hands it remained 
until it passed to the house of Luvois. 

Only skimpy odds and ends remain of Ton- 
nerre 's one-time flanking gates, walls and tow- 
ers. Its old chateau — which the counts in- 
variably referred to, and with reason doubt- 
less, as a palace — has been rebuilt and incor- 
porated into the structure of the present hos- 

84 



Tonnerre, Tanlay and Ancy-le-Franc 85 

pital, itself a foundation by Marguerite de 
Bourgogne and dating back to 1293. No doubt 
many of the wards which to-day shelter the ill 
and crippled were once the scene of princely 
revels. 

In the nineteenth century the structure was 
further remodelled and put in order, but it re- 
mains still, from an architectural point of view 
at least, an admirable example of Renaissance 
building, though none of its attributes to be 
seen at a first glance are such as are usually 
associated with a great chateau of the noblesse 
of other days. At all events its functions of 
to-day are worthy, and it is far better to ad- 
mire a mediseval chateau which has become a 
hospital than one which has been transformed 
into a military barracks or a prison for thieves 
and cutthroats, an indignity which has been 
thrust on many a grand old edifice in France 
deserving of a better fate. To-day such a hard 
sentence is seldom passed. The '' Commission 
des Monuments Historiques " sees to it that no 
such desecrations are further committed. 

"Within the hospice is the remarkably sculp- 
tured tomb of Marguerite de Bourgogne; as 
remarkably done in fact as the better known 
ducal tombs at Dijon, and those of the figlise 
de Brou at Bourg-en-Bresse. The workman- 



86 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 



ship of these elaborate sculptures is typical of 
that known as the Ecole de Dijon. 

Tonnerre's most remarkable sight is neither 
its chateau, nor its hospice, at least not accord- 
ing to the inhabitant. There is nothing to the 
native more curious or interesting to see than 
the celebrated Fosse Dionne (the Fons Diony- 
sius of the ancients), a fountain which supplies 
the city with an abundance of fresh water com- 
ing from no one knows where, but spouting 
from the earth like a geyser, and with a suffi- 
cient force to turn a couple of water-mills. An 
ordinary enough bubbling spring is interesting 
to most of us, so that one enjoying an ancient 
and mysterious reputation is put down as 
a local curiosity well worth coming miles to 
see. 

Half a dozen kilometres out from Tonnerre, 
on the road to Chatillon-sur-Seine, is the Cha- 
teau de Tanlay, not known at all to the travel- 
lers by express trains who are whisked by to 
Switzerland with never as much as a slow-up or 
a whistle as they pass the little station but a 
short distance from the park gates. 

The Chateau de Tanlay is a superb relic of 
a sixteenth century work. This was a period 
when architectural art had become debased not 
a little, but here there is scarcely a trace of its 



Tonnerre, Tanlay and Ancy-le-Franc 87 

having fallen off from the best traditions of a 
couple of centuries before. It is this fact, and 
some others, that makes Tanlay a sight not to 
be neglected by the lover of old chateaux. 

In the midst of a great flowered and shady 
park sits this admirable edifice belonging to the 
descendants of the family of Coligny. It was 
here, to be precise, that the Coligny and the 
Prince de Conde leagued themselves together 
against the wily Catherine de Medicis and her 
crew, and much bad blood was shed on both 
sides before they got en rapport again. 

The Chateau de Tanlay is perhaps the finest, 
certainly one of the most monumental, chateaux 
of Burgundy. Frankly Renaissance, the best 
of it dating from 1559, it was begun by Coligny 
d'Andelot, the brother of the " Admiral." 

One of the most notable of its constructive 
features is the imposing Tour de la Ligue 
where, previous to that dread Saint Bartholo- 
mew's night, the Colignys and the Prince de 
Conde and their followers plotted and planned 
their future actions, and those of their associ- 
ated Ligueurs. 

The Marquis de Tanlay, the present owner 
of the ancient lands of the Courtneys of royal 
race, graciously opens the portal of the chateau 
that the world of curiosity-loving folk who pass 



88 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

by may enter if they will, and marvel at the 
delights within. 

The " Terre de Tanlay " in the thirteenth, 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries belonged to 
the de Courtneys, by whom it was sold to Louise 
de Montmorency, the mother of the Huguenot 
Admiral of Henri IV. This latter, in 1559, 
ceded it to another of her sons, Frangois 
d'Andelot, the Coligny who began the work of 
construction of the chateau forthwith. In 1574 
d'Andelot bequeathed the unachieved work to 
Anne de Coligny, the wife of the Marquis de 
Mirabeau, who, still working on the original 
plans, left it uncompleted at his death in 1630. 
His daughter Catherine fell heir to the prop- 
erty, but sold it five years later to Porticelli 
d'Hemery — Mazarin's Surintendant des Fi- 
nances, who called in the architect Lemuet to 
carry the work to a finish. This he did, or at 
least brought it practically to the condition in 
which it stands to-day. 

The name of Hemery did not long survive as 
chatelain of the property, and the lands passed 
by letters patent to the Thevenin family, its 
present owners, who were able to have the fief 
made into a marquisat. The chateau fortu- 
nately escaped Revolutionary destruction and 
to-day ranks as one of the most beautiful ex- 



Tonnerre, Tanlay and Ancy-le-Franc 89 

ainples of the Renaissance-Bourguignonne style 
of domestic architecture to be seen. 

The edifice in its construction and exterior 
decoration shows plainly its transition between 
the moy en-age manner of building and that 
which is considerably more modern. It is tow- 
ered and turreted after the defensive manner 
of the earliest times, and moat surrounded in 
a way which suggests that the ornamental water 
is something more than a mere accessory in- 
tended to please the eye. Entrance is had by a 
bridge over this moat and finally into the Cour 
d'Honneur through a fortified gateway, as 
pleasingly artistic in its disposition as it is ef- 
fective as a defence. 

Chiefly, the chateau shows to-day d'Hemery^s 
construction of the seventeenth century, paid 
for, says one authority, by silver extorted from 
the poor subjects of his king in the form of gen- 
eral taxes. This may or may not be so, but as 
d'Hemery's wealth was quickly acquired only 
when he had need of it to build this great cha- 
teau, it is quite likely that some of it came from 
sources which might never otherwise have pro- 
duced a personal revenue. 

Another distinct portion of the chateau is 
that arrived at through the Cour d'Honneur, 
and known as Le Petit Chateau, a sort of dis- 



90 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

tinct pavilion, a beautiful example of late Ee- 
naissance work at least a century older than the 
main fabric. 

Though non-contemporary in its parts, the 
chateau taken entire is intensely interesting and 
satisfying in every particular. Furthermore, 
its sylvan site is still preserved much as it was 
in other days, and its alleyed walks are the same 
through which strolled the Colignys and the de 
Courtneys of old. No sacrilege has been com- 
mitted here as in many other seigneurial parks, 
where more than one virgin forest has been cut 
down to make firewood, or perhaps sold to bring 
in gold which an impoverished scion of a noble 
house may have thought he needed. One ave- 
nue alone of this great park runs straight as 
the proverbial flight of an arrow, only ending at 
the chateau portal after a course of two kilo- 
metres straightaway. 

The park in turn is enclosed by a wall nearly 
six kilometres long, and the chief ornamental 
water is considerably over five hundred metres 
in length, and merits well its appellation of 
Grand Canal. This water which fills the moat 
and surrounds the chateau is not stagnant, but 
flows gently from the Quincy to the Armangon 
after first enveloping the property in its folds. 

The greater portion of the structure, that of 



Tonnerre, Tanlay and Ancy-le-Franc 91 

Lemuet, is imposingly grand with its central 
corps de logis and its two wings which advance 
to join up with the' extended members of the 
Petit Chateau, forming with them the grand 
Cour d'Honneur, more familiarly known as the 
Cour Verte. 

The actual entrance is known as the Portail 
Neuf (1547) and serves as the habitation of the 
concierge. At the right is the imposing Tour 
de la Ligue (1648) and to the left the Tour des 
Archives, each enclosing a large spiral stair- 
way and surmounted by a dome terminated with 
a lanternon. At each end of the outer fa§ade 
are two other towers, in form more svelt than 
those in the courtyard. 

In the vestibule within, as one enters the 
main building, are the marble busts of eight 
Eoman Emperors, of little interest one thinks 
in a place where one would expect to find ef- 
figies of the former illustrious occupants of the 
chateau. Various trophies of the chase are 
hung about the walls of this corridor and are 
certainly more in keeping with the general tone 
of things than the cold-cut visages of the noble 
Romans before mentioned. 

A gallery of mythological paintings opens 
out of the vestibule and leads to the seventeenth 
century chapel, which contains a '' Descent 



92 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

from the Cross," by Peregrin, and other relig- 
ious paintings of the Flemish school. Distrib- 
uted throughout the various apartments are 
numerous paintings and portraits by Mignard, 
Nattier, Philippe-de-Champaigne, and others, 
and some pastels by Quentin de la Tour. 

The chimney-pieces throughout are notable 
for their gorgeousness ; that in the Chambre 
des Archeveques, at least a dozen feet high, is 
decorated with two pairs of massive caryatides 
and other statuettes in relief. On another is 
a carven bust of Coligny, the Admiral, with a 
cast of countenance suggesting a sinister leer 
towards the statue of a sphinx which is sup- 
posed to represent the features of Catherine de 
Medicis. 

The paintings of the Tour de la Ligue, sup- 
posedly by Primataccio, representing mytholog- 
ical divinities in the personages of the members 
of the court of the Medicis, bespeak a question- 
able taste on the part of the Colignys who 
caused them to be put there. It would seem as 
though spite had been carried too far, or that 
the artist was given carte blanche to run a riot 
of questionable fantasy for which no one stood 
responsible. All these gods and goddesses of 
the court are, if not repulsive, at least un- 
seemly effigies. Catherine herself is there as 



Tonnerre, Tanlay and Ancy-le-Franc 93 

Juno, her son Charles IX as Pluto, the Admiral 
as Hercules, Guise as Mars, and Venus, of 
course, bears the features of the huntress, 
Diane de Poitiers, 

Abotit as far south from Tonnerre as Tanlay 
is to the eastward is Ancy-le-Franc. It is in 
exactly the same position as Tanlay; its charms 
are pretty generally unknown and unsung, but 
its sixteenth century chateau of the Clermont- 
Tonnerre family is one of the wonder works of 
its era. Rather more admirably designed to 
begin with than many of its confreres, and con- 
siderably less overloaded with meaningless or- 
nament, it has preserved very nearly its orig- 
inal aspect without and within. The finest 
apartments have been conserved and decorated 
to-day with many fine examples of the best of 
Renaissance furnishings. This one may ob- 
serve for himself if he, or she, is fortunate 
enough to gain entrance, a procedure not im- 
possible of accomplishment though the edifice is 
not usually reckoned a sight by the guide-books. 

At present the Marquis de Clermont-Ton- 
nerre holds possession of the property, and 
keeps it up with no little suggestion of its 
former magnificent state. 

If not notable for its fine suggestive feudal 
nomenclature, Ancy-le-Franc certainly claims 



94 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

that distinction by reason of tlie memories of 
its chateau, which dates from the reign of 
Henri II, Nearly three-quarters of a century 
were given to its inception. Of a unique spe- 
cies of architecture, presenting from without 
the effect of a series of squat fagades, orna- 
mented at each corner with a two storied square 
pavilion, it is sober and dignified to excess. The 







interior arrangements are likewise unique and 
equally precise, though not severe. The whole 
is a blend of the best of dignified Italian mo- 
tives, for in truth there is little distinctively 
French about it, and nothing at all Burgundian. 
The structure was begun by the then ruling 
Comtes de Tonnerre in 1555, and became in 
1668 the property of the Marquis de Louvois, 
the minister of Louis XIV, and already pro- 



Tonnerre, Tanlay and Ancy-le-Franc 95 

prietor of the countship of Tonnerre which 
came to him as a dot upon his marriage with 
the rich heiress Anne de Sonvre. 

The gardens and park, now dismembered, 
were once much more extensive and followed 
throughout the conventional Italian motives of 
the period of their designing. Enough is left 
of them to make the site truly enough sylvan, 
but with their curtailment a certain aspect of 
isolation has been lost, and the whole property 
presents rather the aspect of a country place of 
modest proportions than a great estate of vast 
extent. 

The Chateau de Ancy-le-Franc is commonly 
accredited as one of the few edifices of its im- 
portant rank which has preserved its general 
aspect uncontaminated and uncurtailed. No 
parasitical outgrowths, or additions, have been 
interpolated, and nothing really desirable has 
been lopped off. With Chambord and Dam- 
pier re, Ancy-le-Franc stands in this respect in 
a small and select company. Ancy-le-Franc is 
even now much the same as it was when An- 
drouet du Cerceau included a drawing of it in 
his great work (1576), " Les Plus Excellents 
Bastiments de France. ' ' 

He was an architect as well as a writer, this 
Androuet du Cerceau, and he said further: 



96 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

^' For my part I know no other minor edifice 
so much to my liking, not only for its general 
arrangements and surroundings, but for the 
dignified formalities which it possesses." 

Comte Antoine de Clermont, Grand Maitre 
des Eaux et Forets, built the chateau of Ancy- 
le-Franc on the plans of Primataccio, probably 
in 1545, certainly not later, though the exact 
date appears to be doubtful. That Primataccio 
may have designed the building there is little 
doubt, as he is definitely known to have con- 
tributed to the royal chateaux of Fontainebleau 
and Chambord. For a matter of three-quarters 
of a century the edifice was in the construction 
period however, and since Primataccio died in 
1570 it is improbable that he carried out the 
decorations, a class of work upon which he 
made his great reputation, for the simple rea- 
son that they were additions or interpolations 
which came near the end of the construction 
period. This observation probably holds true 
with the decorations attributed to the Italian at 
neighbouring Tanlay. It may be that Prima- 
taccio only furnished sketches for these decora- 
tions and that another hand actually executed 
them. Historical records are often vague and 
indefinite with regard to such matters. Again, 
since Primataccio was chiefly known as a deco- 




fen 






o 



Tonnerrej Tanlay and Ancy-le-Franc 97 

rator the doubt is justly cast upon Ms actually 
having been the designer of Ancy-le-Franc. It 
is all very vague, one must admit that, in spite 
of claims and counterclaims. 

All things considered, this chateau ranks as 
one of the most notable in these parts. The 
surrounding walls bathe their forefoot in the 
waters of the Armangon and thus give it a de- 
fence of value and importance, though the prop- 
erty was never used for anything more than a 
luxurious country dwelling. 

Built, or at any rate designed, by an artist 
who was above all a painter, its walls and pla- 
fonds naturally took on an abundance of deco- 
rative detail. For this reason the chateau of 
Ancy-le-Franc, if for no other, is indeed re- 
markable. Two of its great rooms have been 
celebrated for centuries among art-lovers and 
experts, the Chambre des Fleurs, with its elab- 
orately panelled ceiling, and that of Pastor 
Fido, whose walls show eight great paintings 
depicting the scenes of a pastoral romance. 
The Chambre du Cardinal contains a portrait 
of Eichelieu, and the Chambre des Arts is gar- 
nished most ornately throughout. The mono- 
grams and devises of the ceiling of the Chambre 
des Fleurs suggest the various alliances of the 
Clermonts, but the painted arms are those of 



98 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

the Louvois, who substituted their own marque 
for that of the Clermonts wherever it could 
readily be done. 

The present Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre 
has ably restored the chateau of his ancestors 
and put the family arms for the great part 
back where they belong. His arms are as fol- 
lows: ^' De gueules aux deux clefs d' argent en 
sautoir avec la tiare pour cimier." The motto 
is '' Etsi omnes ego non." These arms were 




Monograms from the Chamhre des Fleurs 

originally conceded to Sibaut II de Clermont 
by Pope Calixtus II in recognition of his hav- 
ing chased the Anti-Pope Gregoire VIII from 
Eome in 1120. 

In the Salle des Empereurs Remains are a 
series of paintings of Roman Emperors which 
makes one think that Tanlay's sculptured 
Roman busts must have set the fashion here- 
abouts or vice versa. 



Tonnerre, Tanlay and Ancy-le-Franc 99 

The Bibliotheque contains a remarkable folio 
showing plans and views of the chateaux of 
Ancy-le-Franc and Tonnerre, the latter since 
destroyed as we have found. 

In the Chapel, dedicated to Sainte Cecile, are 
a series of admirable painted panels of the apos- 
tles and prophets, a favourite religious decora- 
tive motif in these parts, as one readily recalls 
by noting the Puits de Moise and the tomb of 
the Burgundian dukes at Dijon, the inspiration 
doubtless of all other similar works since. 

The Grand Salon of to-day was once the 
sleeping apartment of Louis XIV when one day 
he honoured the chateau with his presence. 

A dozen kilometres south from Ancy-le- 
Franc is Nuits-sous-Eavieres. Nuits, curiously 
enough, a name more frequently seen on the 
wine-lists of first class restaurants than else- 
where, here in the heart of Burgundy, is sup- 
posedly of German origin. Its original inhab- 
itants were Germans coming from Neuss in 
Prussia, whose inhabitants are called Nuych- 
tons, whilst those of Nuits are known as Nui- 
tons. Again, near Berne, in Switzerland, is a 
region known as ]Sru.itland, which would at least 
add strength to the assertion of a Teuton ori- 
gin for this smiling little wine-growing com- 
munity of the celebrated Cote d'Or. 



100 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Nuits possesses a minor chateau "which to all 
intents and purposes fulfils, at a cursory glance, 
its object admirably. It is a comfortably dis- 
posed and not unelegant country house of the 
sixteenth century, sitting in a fine, shady park 
and looks as habitable as it really is, though it 
possesses no historical souvenirs of note. 

A fortified gateway leads from the north end 
of the town towards Champagne, Nuits being 
on the borderland between the possessions of 
the Dues de Bourgogne and those of the Comtes 
de Champagne. 




CHAPTER VIII 



IN OLD BURGUNDY 



Burgundy has ever been known as a land of 
opulence. Since the middle ages its richesse 
has been sung by poets and people alike. There 
is an old Burgundian proverb which runs as 
follows : 

" Riche de Chalon 

Noble de Vienne 

Preux de Vergy 

Fin de NeufcTiatel 
Et la maison de Beaiifremont 
D'ou sont sortis les hauts barons." 



The Burgundians were first of all vandals, 
but with their alliance with the Romans in the 

101 



102 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

fifth century they became a people distinct and 
apart, and of a notable degree of civilization. 
They established themselves first in Savoy, a 
gift to them of the Emperor Valentinian, and 
made Geneva the capital of their kingdom. 

A new Burgundian kingdom of vast extent 
came into being under the Frankish kings ; this 
second dynasty of Burgundian rulers finally 
came to the French throne itself. In the mean- 
time they held, through their powerful line of 
dukes, the governorship of the entire province 
with a power that was absolute, — a power that 
was only equalled by that of independent sov- 
ereigns. The Burgundians were no vassal race. 

The hereditary Dues de Bourgogne reigned 
from 721 to 1361, during which period the duchy 
rose to unwonted heights of richness and lux- 
ury as well as esteem by its neighbours. Under 
the Frankish line the career of the province 
was no less brilliant, and when the King of 
France gave the duchy to his third son Philippe, 
that prince showed himself so superior in abil- 
ity that he would treat with his suzerain father 
only as an equal in power. 

In the reign of Louis XIV the eldest son of 
the house of France bore again the title Due 
de Bourgogne, his grandson, born in 1751, be- 
ing the last prince to be so acknowledged. 



In Old Burgundy 103 

Burgundy in 1789 still formed one of the 
great " gouvemements " of the France of that 
day, and in addition was recognized in its own 
right as a Pays d'^itat. With the new portion- 
ing out of old France under Revolutionary rule 
the old Burgundian province became the mod- 
ern Departements of the Cote d'Or, the Saone 
et Loire and the Yonne. 

The Burgundian nobles who made Dijon 
their residence in Renaissance times lived well, 
one may be sure, with such a rich larder as the 
heart of Burgundy was, and is, at their door. 
There is no granary, no wine-cellar in France 
to rival those of the Cote d'Or. The shop- 
keepers of Dijon, the fournisseurs of the court, 
supplied only the best. The same is true of the 
shop-keepers of these parts to-day, whatever 
may be their line of trade. Even the religious 
institutions of old were, if not universal pro- 
viders, at least purveyors of many of the good 
things of the table. "When the monks of Saint 
Beninge sent out their lay brothers, sandalled 
and cowled, to call in the streets of Dijon the 
wines of the convent vineyards not a wine 
dealer was allowed to compete with them. This 
miade for fair dealing, a fine quality of mer- 
chandise and a full measure at other times, no 
doubt. The monks who sold this product were 



104 Gastles and Ghateaux of Old Burgundy 

accompanied by a surpliced cleric who fan- 
fared a crowd around him and announced his 
wine by extolling its virtues as if he was chant- 
ing a litany. 

In Burgundy there has come down from feu- 
dal times a series of sobriquets which, more 
than in any other part of France, have endured 
unto this time. There were the " buveiirs " of 
Auxerre, the " escuyers " of Burgundy and 
the '' moqueurs " of Dijon. All of these are 
terms which are locally in use to-day. 

The Bourguignons in the fifth century, by a 
preordained custom, wore, suspended by cords 
or chains from their belts, the keys of their 
houses, the knives which served them at table 
as well as for the hunt (forks were not then in- 
vented, or at any rate not in common use), their 
purse, more or less fat with silver and gold, 
their sword and their ink-well and pens; all 
this according to their respective stations in 
life. When one was condemned for a civil con- 
travention before a judge he was made to de- 
posit his belt and its dangling accessories as an 
act of acknowledgment of his incapacity to 
properly conduct his affairs. It was no sign 
of infamy or lack of probity, but simply an in- 
dication of a lack of business sagacity. It was 
the same, even, with royalty and the noblesse 



In Old Burgundy 105 

as with the common people, and the act was 
applied as well to women as men. The Du- 
chesse de Bourgogne, widow of Philippe-le- 
Hardi, who died covered with debts brought 
about by his generosity, admitted also that she 
was willing to share the responsibilities of his 
faults by renouncing certain of her rights and 
deposition on his tomb of his ceinture, his keys 
and his purse. 

Isabelle de Baviere, who owed so much to a 
Due de Bourgogne of the seventeenth century, 
was criticised exceedingly when she came 
among his people because of the luxury of pos- 
sessing two " chemises de toile," the women of 
the court at the time — in Burgundy at all- 
events — dressing with the utmost simplicity. 
With what degree of simplicity one can only 
imagine ! 

Another luxury in these parts in mediaeval 
times was the use of candles. What artificial 
light was made use of in a domestic manner 
came from resinous torches, and cires and can- 
dles were used only in the churches, or perhaps 
in the oratories, or private chapels, of the cha- 
teaux. 

The homes of the Burgundian bourgeoisie 
were hardly as luxuriant or magnificent as 
those of the nobles, nor were they as comfort- 



106 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

ably disposed in many instances as one would 
expect to learn of this land of ease and plenty. 
Frequently there was no board flooring, no 
'tiles, no paving of flag stones, even. A simple 
hard-pounded clay floor served the humble 
householder for his rez-de-chaussee. In the 
more splendid Eenaissance town houses, or even 
in many neighbouring chateaux, it was not in- 
frequent that the same state of affairs existed, 
but sheaves or bunches of straw were scattered 
about, giving the same sort of warmth that 
straw gives when spread in the bottom of an 
omnibus. If a visitor of importance was ex- 
pected fresh straw was laid down, but this was 
about all that was done to make him comfort- 
able. Otherwise the straw was generally of 
the Augean stable variety, since it was usually 
renewed but three times during the cold season, 
which here lasts from three to five months out 
of the twelve. In time a sort of woven or 
plaited straw carpet came into use, then square 
flags and tiles, and finally rugs, or tapis, which, 
in part, covered the chilly flooring. Elsewhere, 
as the rugs came into the more wealthy houses, 
plain boards, sometimes polished, served their 
purpose much as they do now. 

Only the rich had glazed windows. The first 
window glass used in France was imported 



In Old Burgundy 107 

from England in the twelfth century, at which 
time it was reckoned as one of the greatest of 
domestic luxuries. 

Chimneys, too, were wanting from the houses 
of the poor. Houses with windows without 
glass, and entirely without chimneys, must have 
lacked comfort to a very great degree. Such 
indeed exist to-day, though, in many parts of 
France. This is fact ! A sort of open grate in 
a lean-to outside the house, and iron barred 
open windows without even shutters are to be 
found in many places throughout the Midi of 
France. One such the writer knows in a town, 
of three thousand inhabitants, and it is occupied 
by a prosperous ^' decorated " Frenchman. 
What comfort, or discomfort! 

The Burgundian householder of mediaeval 
times sat with his family huddled around a 
great brazier upon which burned wood or char- 
coal. The rising smoke disappeared through 
a hole in the centre of the roof in primitive red- 
man's fashion. 

As late as the fifteenth century there were no 
individual chairs in any but the most prosper- 
ous and pretentious homes. Their place was 
taken by benches, and these mostly without 
backs. 

Chiefly the meaner houses were built of wood 



108 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

and thatched after the manner of such thatched 
roofs as exist to-day, but with less symmetry, 
one judges from the old prints. 

All the world and his wife retired early. 
This one learns from the Burgundian proverb 
already old in the time of Louis XII. 

" Lever a cinq, diner a neuf 
Souper d cinq, coucher a neuf 
Fait vivre d^ans nonante et neufJ" 

This is probabty as true to-day as it was then 
if one had the courage to live up to it and find 
out. 

The ancient reputation of the wine of Bur- 
gundy dates back centuries and centuries before 
the jnice of the grape became the common drink 
of the French. During the famous schism 
which divided the Church in the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries, the Due de Bourgogne, Phi- 
lippe-le-Hardi, was deputed, in 1395, to present 
to Pope Benoit XIII, then living at Avignon in 
the Comtat, ** rich presents and twenty queues 
of the wine of Beaune." 

History and romance have been loud in their 
praises of the rich red wines of Burgundy ever 
since the dawn of gormandizing. Petrarch 
has said that his best inspirations and senti- 
ments came from the wine of Beaune, and the 



In Old Burgundy 109 

Avignon Popes lengthened their sojourn in 
their Papal City on the banks of the Rhone 
because of the easy transport and the low price 
of the fine wines of Beaune. " There is not in 
Italy, ' ' they said, ' ' the wine of Beaune nor the 
means of getting it." 

The heart of old Burgundy, that is, the Cote 
d'Or of to-day, is the region of France the most 
densely wooded after the Vosges. Great for- 
ests exploited for their wood are everywhere, 
oak and beech predominating. Only the co- 
teaux, the low-lying hillsides, where the vines 
are chiefly grown, are bare of forest growth. 

Two great rivers cross the province from 
north to south, and two from east to west, the 
Aube, the Dheune, the Saone and the Vin- 
geanne, and the Seine itself takes birth between 
Saint Seine and Chanceaux, this last, like 
most of the great rivers of Europe, being but 
a humble rivulet at the commencement. Two 
canals furnish an economical means of com- 
munication, and are really remarkable water- 
ways. The Canal de Bourgogne joins up 
the Saone and the Seine, and more impor- 
tant still is that which joins the Rhone and 
Rhine. 

Eight " Routes Royales ** crossed the pro- 
vince in old monarchical days, and where once 



110 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
rolled princely corteges now whiz automobiles 
witliout count. 

In the seventeenth century from Paris to 
Dijon was a journey of eight days in winter 
and seven in summer, by the malle-poste. One 
departure a week served what traffic there was, 
and the price was twenty-four livres (francs) 
a head, with baggage charged at three sols a 
pound. The departure from Paris was from 
the old auberge " Aux Quatre Fils Aymon," 
and more frequently than not the announce- 
ments read that the coach would leave ' ' as soon 
as possible " after the appointed hour. 

Whatever feudal reminiscence may linger in 
the minds of the readers of old chronicles let 
no one forget that France in general, and Bur- 
gundy in particular, is no longer a land of pov- 
erty where everybody but the capitalist has to 
pick up fagots for fires. Far from it ; the peas- 
ant hereabouts, the worker in the fields, may 
lack many of the commonly accepted luxuries 
of life, but he eats and drinks as abundantly as 
the seemingly more prosperous dweller in the 
towns, and if not of meat three times a day 
(the worn-out, threadbare argument of the 
English and American traveller who looks not 
below the surface in continental Europe) it is 
because he doesn't crave it. That he is the 



In Old Burgundy 111 

better in mind and body for the lack of it goes 
without saying. 

The valley of the Saone above Dijon is a 
paradise of old fiefs of counts and dukes. Al- 
most every kilometre of its ample course bears 
a local name allied with some seigneur of feu- 
dal days. The whole watershed is historic, ro- 
mantic ground. Mantoche was the site of a 
Cite Eomain; Apremont gave birth to one of 
the most prolific of romancers, Xavier de 
Montepin, a litterateur who wrote mostly for 
concierges and shop girls of a couple of genera- 
tions ago, but a name famous in the annals of 
French literature nevertheless. 

Leaving the country of the minor counts the 
Saone enters into Basse Bourgogne, taking on 
at various stages of its career the name of 
Petite Saone, Saone Superieur or Grande 
Saone. All told it has a navigable length of 
nearly four hundred kilometres, making it one 
of France's mightiest chemins qui marche, to 
borrow Napoleon's phrase. 

The entire heart of old Burgundy above Di- 
jon, the plain that is, is most curiously sown 
with cultures of a variety that one would hardly 
expect to find. 

Here and there a chateau de commerce, as 
the French distinguish the '' ivine-chateaux '* 



112 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

from the purely domestic establishments and 
the " monuments historiques " of which the 
French government is so justly proud, crops 
up surrounded by its vineyards, with its next 
door neighbour, perhaps, an exploitation of 
hops, the principal ingredient of beer, as the 
grape is of wine. The paradox is as inexplic- 
able, as is the fact that Dijon is famous for 
mustard when not a grain of it is grown nearer 
the Cote d'Or than India. 

It is true that Dijon is noted quite as much 
for its mustard and its gingerbread as for its 
sculpture. The Ecole Dijonnais is supreme in 
all three specialties. The historic figure, ' ' mus- 
tardmaker to the Pope," has caused many a 
'' rire bourguignon " ; nevertheless the pre- 
paring of Dijon mustard is a good deal of a 
secret still, as all who know the subtleness of 
this particular condiment recognize full well. 

The mustard pots of Dijon, even those of 
commonest clay, are veritable works of art. It 
would pay some one to collect them. The ' ^ Fon- 
taine de Jouvence," which one may buy for 
thirty sous at the railway buffet, is indeed a 
gem; another, blazoned with the arms of Bur- 
gundy, and the legend ^' Moult me tarde," 
followed by " d'y gouster " is no less. 



^^<D ijonnais 
S^^ <»Bcai i lolais 

- . ^-1. 1 Art t..^^rt-i i.-...,a-ivi ^^^ira 




CHAPTER IX 




DIJON, THE CITY OF THE DUKES 

Of no city of 
France are there 
more splendid 
ducal memories 
than of Dijon. 
To the French 
historians it has 
ever "been known 
as '^ the city of 

■VAijufiNG, t^e glorious 
T^ijoTv.-/ dukes." It is 

one of the cities which has best conserved its 

picturesque panoramic silhouette in Europe. 

Certainly no other of the cities of modern 

France can approach it in this respect. Its 

strikingly mediaeval skyline serrated with 

spires, donjon and gables innumerable gives 

it a cachet all its own. Its situation, too, is 

remarkable, lying as it does snugly wrapped 

between the mountain and the plain by the 

flanks of the gently rolling coteaux round 

113 



114 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

about, Dijon is still a veritable reminder of 
the moyen-age in spite of tbe fact that count- 
less of its palaces, towers and clochers have dis- 
appeared with the march of time and the insist- 
ent movement of progress. 

This was less true a generation or so ago. 
Then the city's old ramparts were intact. To- 
day not more than a scant area of house front 
or garden wall suggests the one time part that 
the same stones played in the glory of war and 
siege. Nearby, too, the contemplation of Dijon 
evokes the same emotions in spite of a monoto- 
nous modernity to be seen in the new quarters 
of the town, where all is a dull drab in strong 
contrast to the liveliness of the colouring of the 
older parts. Dijon, take it all in all, is indeed 
a museum of architectural splendours. 

" Nous allions admirant clochers, portails et tours, 
Et les vielles maisons dans les arrih'p. cours." 

Thus said Saint-Beauve, and any who come 
this way to-day, and linger long enough in the 
city of the dukes, may well take it for their 
text. 

After many and diverse fortunes Dijon be- 
came the capital of the Duche de Bourgogne in 
1015 under Due Robert, the first of the line of 
Burgundian dukes, known as the dukes of the 



Dijon, the City of the Dukes 115 

premiere race royale. This particular Robert 
was the grandson of Hugues Capet. Twelve 
princes in succession (until 1349) ruled the des- 
tinies of the dukedom from the capital, and 
showered upon its inhabitants benefits galore. 
At this time Philippe de Rouvres came into the 
control of the duchy, under the tutelage of his 
mother, Jeanne de Bourgogne. 

One reads in the '' Role des Depenses " of 
1392 unmistakable facts which point to the 
luxury which surrounded the court of Bur- 
gundy in the fourteenth century. Particularly 
is this so with regard to the garde-rohe of 
Philippe-le-Hardi, wherein all his costumes, in- 
cluding the trappings of his horses, were gar- 
nished with real gold. Many other attributes 
went to make up the gorgeous properties of this 
admirable stage setting. There was an elabor- 
ate " cJiaine a porter reliques " and '' la tonne 
ceinture de Monseigneur Saint Louis '^ to be 
counted among the tresor of the court. 

Amid all this sumptuousness there was a 
notable regard for the conservation and safe- 
guarding of governmental funds and property. 
This is to be remarked the more because of the 
fact that the overlord generally took for his 
own, and that of his heirs, all that came within 
his immediate presence. The Burgundian dukes 



116 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

at Dijon administered their rule with prudence 
and good judgment in all particulars until the 
Duche and the neighbouring Comte (afterwards 
the Franche Comte) stood almost alone among 
the European states of their time in not being 
obliged to own to a profligate hierarchy of 
administrators. 

In all phases of their history the Dijonnais 
have ever been jealous of their personal liber- 
ties. Frangois Premier, a prisoner at Madrid, 
had ceded Burgundy as a part of unwillingly 
given ransom to Charles Quint, who had al- 
ready acquired the Franche Comte. The Dijon 
parliament would hear nothing of such a pro- 
ject, and energetically refused to ratify the 
treaty, sending their deputies to Cognac, to 
the convention which had been called, in pro- 
test. 

Dijon's chateau was first built by Louis XI 
to hold in leash his " tonne ville de Dijon.^' 
The edifice was only completed in 1572, under 
Louis XII. It was in its prime, judging from 
historical descriptions, a most curious example 
of fifteenth century military architecture. The 
Dijonnais of late years demanded the suppres- 
sion, and the clearing away, of the debris of 
this old royal chateau, believing (wrongly of 
course) that the ducal palace was sufficient 



Dijon, the City of the Dukes 117 

to sustain the glory of their city. Accordingly, 
there remains nothing to-day of the chateau of 
the Louis but a scant funeral pile built up from 
the stones of the former chateau merely as a 
historical guide post, or rather, memorial of 
what has once been. Historical enthusiasm and 
much palavering on the part of a certain body 
of local antiquarians against the popular wave 
of feeling, could accomplish no more of a res- 
toration. For the past fifty years the ruin has 
been, it is true, something of an eye-sore, an 
ill-kept, badly guarded, encumbering ruin, and 
unless it may be better taken care of, it would 
be as well to have it removed. 

In form this chateau was a perfectly rect- 
angular tower, sustained at each corner by 
a round tower of lesser proportions. As a 
whole it was one of the most massive works of 
its era in these parts. Its defence towards the 
north was a great horse-shoe shaped redoubt, 
a most unusual and most efficient rampart. 
Towards the city it was defended by a moat 
over which one entered the chateau proper by 
the traditional drawbridge. 

The vast monumental pile at Dijon which 
bears the name of Hotel de Ville to-day has 
been variously known as the Palais des Dues, 
the Logis du Eox and the Palais des iEtats. It 



118 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
has served all three purposes and served them 
well and with becoming dignity. 

The exact origin of the structure has been 
left behind in the dim distance, but it is certain 
that it was the outgrowth of some sort of a 
foundation which existed as early as the tenth 
century, a period long before the coming of the 
so-called chateau. 

In the twelfth century Hugues III built the 
Sainte Chapelle, all vestiges of which, save cer- 
tain decorative elements built into the eastern 
wall of the Palais des Dues, have now disap- 
peared. 

Philippe-le-Hardi, in 1366, almost entirely 
rebuilt the palace as it then existed, and Phi- 
lippe-le-Bon actually did complete the work in 
1420, when the great square Tour de la Ter- 
rasse, of a height of nearly fifty metres, was 
built. There is still existing another minor 
tower, the Tour de Bar, so named from the fact 
that for three years it was the prison of Rene 
d'Anjou, the Due de Bar. In 1407 and 1502 
this tower was nearly destroyed by fire, which 
carried away as well a great part of the main 
structure of that time. 

The edifice is to-day occupied by many civic 
departments, including the Musee, the Archives 
and the Ecole des Beaux Arts, but the Salle des 



Dijon, the City of the Dukes 119 



Gardes and the '' Cuisines des Dues " still re- 
main, as to their general outlines of walls and 
ceilings, as they were when they served the 
dukes themselves. 

The present edifice, in spite of being known 
as the Ducal Palace, was not inhabited by any 
of the nobles of the first race ; there is no part 
which dates from so early a period as that of 
the end even of 
their regime. The 
most ancient of 

the elements _,,„,.,_, 
, . , „ , CUISINES 

which formerly ^ 

made up the col- ^DlTON 
lective block of 
buildings was the 
Sainte Chapelle, 
which was demol- 
ished in 1802, and 
the res-de-cJiaussee of the Tour de Bar, which 
still exists. The lower part of this tower dates 
from the thirteenth century, the upper portions 
from the fourteenth. 

Prom the ducal account books it appears that 
the portions known as the " Cuisines " — ac- 
tually housing the Musee Lapidaire to-day — 
were constructed in 1445, and it is this part of 
the old palace which is the most interesting 




120 Oastles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

because it best illustrates the manner of build- 
ing hereabouts at that period. 

The Burgundian court attached great impor- 
tance to the service at table, and during the fif- 
teenth century there was not in all of Europe 
a line of princes who were better fed or got 
more satisfaction from the joys of the table. 
This is historic fact, not mere conjecture ! The 
descriptions of the festins which were given by 
the Dues de Bourgogne and described in the 
" Memoires d 'Olivier de la Marche " make in- 
teresting reading to one who knows anything 
of, and has any liking for, the chronicles of 
gastronomy. 

For such a bountiful serving at table as was 
habitual with the dukes, kitchens of the most 
ample proportions were demanded. It is re- 
counted that on many occasions certain of the 
mets were cooked in advance, but a prodigious 
supply of soups, ragouts and sauces, of fish, 
volaille, and rotis were of necessity to be pre- 
pared at the moment of consumption. To pro- 
duce these in their proper order and condition 
was the work of an army of cooks supported 
by a numerous " hatterie de cuisine; " neces- 
sarily they required an ample room in which 
to work. The modern French cook demands the 



Dijon, the City of the Dukes 121 

same thing to-day. Details in this line do not 
change so rapidly in this " land of good cooks " 
as elsewhere, for the French chef is still su- 
preme and cares not for labour or time-saving 
appliances. 

The ^' Cuisines," as to their ground plan, 
form a perfect square, the roof being borne 
aloft by eight columns, which on three sides of 
the apartment serve as supporters also for the 
great twin-hooded chimneys. Two potagers, or 
hraisers, where the pots might be kept simmer- 
ing, were at B on the plan, and the oven, or 
foyer ardente was at C. D was a well, and E 
its means of access. The windows were at F 
and G, and H was a great central smoke-pipe, 
or opening in the roof, which served the same 
functions as the hole in the roof of the Indian's 
wigwam. K was a serving table, made also of 
stone, to receive the dishes after being cooked ; 
and, that they might not become literally stone 
cold before being finally served, this table had 
a sort of subterranean heating arrangement. 

The conglomerate structure of to-day which 
serves its civic functions so well is an out- 
growth of all these varied components which 
made up the ducal residence of old. It was 
midway in its career that it became the Parlia- 



122 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

ment House of the Etats de Bourgogne, so it 
took naturally to its new function when it came 
to uphold merely civic dignity. 

The apartment where sat the Burgundian 
Parliament^ the Salle des Etats, has been re- 
cently restored and decorated with a series of 
wall paintings depicting the glories of Bur- 
gundy. It is a seemingly appropriate decora- 
tion and in every way admirably executed, 
though the name attached thereto may not be 
as famous as that of an Abbey or a Sargent. 

In general the character of the great pile of 
buildings to-day, on account of the heterogene- 
ous aspect of the mass, forbids any strict esti- 
mate applicable to its artistic merits. The most 
that can be ventured is to comment on that 
which is definitely good. 

At many times during its career it has been 
remodelled and added to by many able hands. 
As a result there are naturally many worthy 
bits which may be discovered by close observa- 
tion that in general run a fair chance of being 
overlooked. Two pupils of Mansart worked 
upon the remodelling of the structure, and Man- 
sart himself designed the colonnade and the 
vestibule of the Salle des Etats. Twelve prin- 
cipal buildings surrounding the main courtyard 
came into being from time to time, and in one 




Chateau des Dues, Dijon 



Dijon, the City of the Dukes 123 

form or another they are all there to-day, 
though in the scantiest of fragments in some 
instances. An old-time iron gateway, or grille, 
still exists midway between the two principal 
facades of the Doric order. The effect of this 
faQade is heavy, but ornate: frankly it is bad 
architecture, but it is imposing. It is bad be- 
cause it is a manifest Italian interpolation with 
little or nothing in common with other decora- 
tive details to be seen, details which are of the 
transplanted French variety of Renaissance, 
and that in truth is far and away ahead of 
anything in Italy or any rank copy of anything 
of Italian origin. 

The old Place Royale opened out fan-like 
before the building and gave a certain spectac- 
ular effect which saved it from ultra bad taste 
at that period. The Place d'Armes, before the 
present Hotel de Ville (which now occupies the 
principal part of the old ducal palace), and the 
Place des Dues, at the rear, lend the same ar- 
tistic aid which was performed by the Place 
Royale in its time. 

Of the interior arrangements but little re- 
mains as it was of old save a range of vaulted 
rooms on the lower floor, the Salle des Gardes, 
the apartments of the Tour de Bar and the 
** Cuisines." The public functions which have 



124 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

been performed by the structure in late years 
have nearly swept away the old glamour of 
romance and chivalry which might otherwise 
have hung about the place for ages, so that to- 
day it is, like many edifices of its class in 
France, simply a hive of office-holders and little- 
worked authorities of the state and civic ad- 
ministrations. It is difficult to see any romance 
in the visage of a modern town-clerk or a ser- 
geant-at-arms. 

This old palace of the dukes was chiefly the 
work of Dijon craftsmen, at least those por- 
tions which were built in the sixteenth century 
or immediately after. This is the more to be 
remarked because the gables and roof-tops are 
not unlike that Flemish-Gothic of the Hospice 
de Beaune which was built by alien hands. 

At Dijon the northern portal was designed by 
Brouhee and the roofing of the Grande Salle 
was made from the plans of Sambin and 
Chambrette, as was the doorway from the 
street to the chapel. The Chambre Doree has 
a most beautiful ceiling of the time of Francois 
Premier, and the hoiseries and the grisaille of 
the same apartment date from the period of 
Louis XIII. 

There are two other notable ceilings in the 



Dijon, the City of the Dukes 125 

edifice, those of the Bibliotheque and the Salle 
d 'Assises. 

Dijon has ever been noted down by those who 
know as a city of a distinctly local and a really 
great and celebrated art. The Elcole de Dijon 
was a unique thing which had no counterpart 
elsewhere. Under the liberally encouraging 
patronage of the Dues de Bourgogne numerous 
habile artists banded together and constituted 
the local *' iScole de Dijon." It was a body of 
artists and craftsmen whose careers burned 
brilliantly throughout the best period of the 
Eenaissance, indeed up to its end, for the Hotel 
de Vogue at Dijon, of a very late period, shows 
the distinct local manner of building at its best. 

Hugues Sambin, who designed the Palace of 
the Burgundian Parliament, was the best known 
of these Dijon craftsmen — best known perhaps 
because of his architectural writings (1572), 
for his work was not indeed superior to that of 
his fellows. His dwelling exists to-day at 
Dijon, in the Eue de la Vannerie, somewhat dis- 
figured and not at all reminiscent of the great 
capabilities of his art which he so freely be- 
stowed on the more magnificent structures of 
his clients. A tower, presumably a part of the 
house itself, rises close beside, and on its vault- 



126 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

ing one sees the devise " Tout par Compas,'* 
the same that may be seen in the Hotel de 
Vogue, though it is declared that there is no 
other connection between the two save that 
Sambin had a hand in the construction of both. 
The motto is undeniably a good one for an 
architect. 

The local Museum contains one of the most 
important provincial collections in France. It 
occupies the ancient Salle des Gard6s of the 
Palais and encloses the tombs of Jean-Sans- 
Peur and Philippe-le-Hardi. As examples of 
the sculptures of the Burgundian school of the 
fifteenth century these ornate tombs are in the 
very first category. They were brought from 
the Chartreux de Dijon in 1795. How they es- 
caped Eevolutionary desecration is a marvel, 
but here they are to-day in all the glory of 
their admirable design and execution. If Sar- 
gent's frieze of the prophets in the Boston Pub- 
lic Library was not inspired by these cowled 
figures surrounding the ducal tombs at Dijon, 
it must be a dull critic indeed who will not at 
least admit the suggestion of similarity. 

The mausoleum of Philippe-le-Hardi has a 
single recumbent effigy on the slab above, whilst 
that of Jean-Sans-Peur is accompanied by an^ 
other, that of his wife, Marguerite de Baviere. 



Dijon, the City of the Dukes 127 

The tiny statuettes in tlie niches of the arcade 
below, and surrounding each of the tombs, are 
similar; finely chiselled, weeping, mourning 
figures, most exquisitely sculptured and dis- 
posed. 

The tomb of Philippe-le-Hardi is the older, 
and is the work of Claus Sluter and Claus de 
Werve; that of Jean-Sans-Peur was conceived 
(half a century later) by Jehan de la Heurta 
and Antoine Moiturier. A statue of Anne de 
Bourgogne, the Duchess of Bedford, the daugh- 
ter of Jean-Sans-Peur, stands between these 
two royal tombs. 

It is worthy to note that the robe of the statue 
of Marguerite de Baviere is sown with that par- 
ticular species of field daisy which we have 
come to know as the marguerite, so named from 
the predilection of the princess in question for 
that humble flower. 

Dijon's Maison de Saint FrauQois-de-Sales 
may well be given passing consideration for 
reasons stated below. It dates from 1541 and 
thus belongs to an epoch when the art of the 
Eenaissance was at its height. It is an elabor- 
ately conceived edifice and, judging from the 
escutcheons of its fa§ade, was the habitation, 
at one time or another, of some of the royal 
family of France. In spite of this the author- 



128 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

ities have little definite to say with regard to 
its founders. 

On the svelt tourelle at the side one notes that 
the lead epi, or weather-vane, is intact, a re^ 
markable fact when one considers that it has 
endured for nearly five centuries. All things 
considered, this dainty habitation is one of the 
most pleasing and ornate structures of its class. 
If it were at Azay-le-Rideau in Touraine, or at 
Beaugency on the Loire, it would be heralded 
far and wide as one of the flowers of the Eenais- 
sance. To rank it in any place but as one of 
the most charming hotels privees, or small 
town chateaux, of Burgundy would be a grave 
error. 

Dijon possesses as well a most curious and 
little known structure, at least not known to 
the usual hurly burly world of tourists. It is 
near the Palais de Justice, enclosed behind a 
high protecting wall, through which easy access 
is to be had by a gateway opened on request. 
The edifice is mysteriously called the Hotel de 
Venus, and is a diminutive edifice with its en- 
tire outer wall garlanded with flowers and em- 
blems cut deep into its rather crumbly stones. 
Just what the significance of this strange build- 
ing was, and who, or what, were its antecedents, 
is in great doubt. 



Dijon, the City of the Dukes 129 

Dijon's Bibliotheque occupies a part of the 
great town house built by Odinet Godran in 
1681. The Departmental Archives occupy the 
restored city dwelling of Nicolas Rollin, the 
Chancellor of the first Burgundian Parliament. 
It is a reconstruction now of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, but originally came into being in the fif- 
teenth. The principal apartment owns to a 
richly sculptured chimney-piece and an elabor- 
ate plafond a caissons, each the work of Ran- 
curelle, a seventeenth century sculptor of Dijon. 

In the Rue des Forges are numerous old Re- 
naissance houses, many of them of a grandeur 
which entitles them to a higher rank than a 
mere maison hourgeoise. Many of them indeed 
bear the proud names of the old Burgundian 
noblesse. One is called the Maison des Ambas- 
sadeurs d'Espagne, though just why, history is 
dark. One can readily surmise however, for it 
certainly is a luxuriously appointed dwelling in 
spite of the fact that it lacks a definite history. 

Near the Eglise Notre Dame are the Maison 
Milsand, the old Hotel des Ambassadeurs d'An- 
gleterre; the Hotel du Vogue is in the Rue 
Chaudronnerie, and also the Maison des Caria- 
tides. All are admirable examples of the Bur- 
gundian Renaissance, which tells its history in 
its stones. And what history ! 



130 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

The old Hotel des Ambassadeurs d'Angle- 
terre was the residence of the Duke of Bedford 
when he married, in 1423, Anne de Bourgogne. 
The alleys and the " park," supposedly de- 
signed by the famous " Le Notre, the man of 
gardens," who was responsible for those of 
Versailles and Vaux, are little changed to-day 
from what they were in the century of Louis 
XIV. 



CHAPTER X 

IN THE COTE d'oR: BEAUNE, LAROCHEPOT AND 
EPINAC 

In the heart of the Cote d'Or are found first 
of all the bonnes villes de hons vins of the 
French, Beaune, Pommard, Nuits, etc. Here is 
a region which was literally sown with great 
country houses of wealthy seigneurs ; each an- 
cient seigneurie of any importance whatever 
had its own little fortress or block-house which 
stood forth as an advance post at some distance 
from the residence of the overlord. By this 
means only could the seigneurs command re- 
spect for their vineyards. One notes much the 
same condition of affairs to-day. If there are 
no forts nor block-houses any more, nor arrows 
shot from bows, nor melted lead poured down 
on one from some castle wall, there are at least 
high stone barriers and big dogs and guardians 
of all ranks to serve their masters as faithfully 
as did the serfs and vilains of old. One is glad 
to say, however, that the Cote d 'Or of to-day 
is not an inhospitable region. 

131 



132 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

The transformations of later years which 
have taken place hereabouts have been very- 
considerable, and the historic names one recog- 
nizes best to-day are those used by the cha~ 
teaux de commerce, and found reproduced on 
the labels on the bottles in the chic restaurants 
and hotels throughout the world. 

One can not, must not, pass these great en- 
terprises by unnoted or with their praises un- 
sung. Their histories are often as interesting 
as those of the maisons de plaisance of the 
seigneurs who despised trade and robbed and 
grafted for a livelihood. Undoubtedly many of 
them did take the wide road to riches, for the 
feathering of political nests by the willing or 
unwilling aid of one's constituents is no new 
thing. 

The gatherers of the grape under the Bur- 
gundians and the Bourbons were not always the 
happy contented crew that they have so fre- 
quently been pictured on canvas. The novelists, 
the playwrights and the painters have limned 
the lily a little too strong at times. One judges 
of this from a chanson which has come down 
through centuries. 

" Allons en vendagne pour gagner cinq sous 
Coucher sur la paille, ramasser les poux 
Manger du Jromage qui pue comme la rage.' 



In the Cote d'Or 133 

It was said in the good old days that the 
grape-pickers were wont to eat as much as eight 
kilos of the grapes a day, to say nothing of 
drinking three litres of wine, — manifestly they 
were not so badly off, even at a wage of only 
five sous for a whole day's labour. 

South from Dijon the itinerary through the 
core of the Cote d'Or passes in review a succes- 
sion of names which one usually associates only 
with a wine list. If one has studied the map of 
France closely the surprise is not so great, but 
for many it will come as something unexpected 
to be able to breakfast at Chambertin, lunch at 
Nuits, dine at Beaune and sleep at Mersault or 
Nolay. First off, on leaving the capital of the 
dukes, almost within sight of its palace towers, 
one comes to the great wine district of Chenove, 
and more than all others of this region it is to 
be revered by the lover of the history and ro- 
mance of feudal lords. Sheltered, and almost 
enwrapped by the mountain background, it sits 
on the edge of the sunny plain where once the 
Dues de Bourgogne marshalled their armies 
and their courtiers. 

Not one of the very first wines of the Cote 
d'Or Chenove comes from the bright particular 
vineyards or closes of the Burgundian dukes. 
Their ancient cellars and cuviers are still ex- 



134 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

istent but tlie wines matured in them are to-day 
the growth of American roots, planted in the 
last dozen or twenty years to take the place of 
those destroyed by the phylloxera, the grafted 
stocks serving to give that classic body and 
flavour which have made the Burgundian crus 
famous. Thus the favourite axiom is proved 
that it is the soil and not the grape which makes 
fine wine. 

Here at Chenove there is still to be seen the 
wine vats and presses which served the minions 
of Philippe-le-Hardi and Charles-le-Temeraire 
as they pressed their masters' wines, handling 
the great fifty foot levers and chanting much 
as do sailors as they march around the capstan. 
A block of stone weighing twenty-five tons was 
alternately raised and lowered with the grapes 
beneath in great hoUowed-out troughs of stone 
or wood in no far different fashion from the 
methods of to-day. 

Below Chenove is Fixin, glorious in memory 
because of a striking monument to Napoleon, 
placed there by one of his fanatical admirers, 
Commandant Noisat. The Clos de la Perriere, 
and the Clos du Chapitre, two of the grand 
wines of the Cote d'Or, also help to give Fixin 
its fame — how much, who shall say — al- 
though this Napoleonic shrine is really a won- 



In the Cote d'Or 136 

der of statuesque sculpture. An alley of pines 
leads up to a fountain behind whose basin rise 
stone seats and a rustic shelter destined to pro- 
tect the effigy of Napoleon, a bronze by the 
Dijon sculptor, Rude. The whole ensemble is 
most effective, far more so than the usual plas- 
ter, or cast-iron statues of the '^ Little Cor- 
poral " with which France is peopled. To 
carry the devotion still farther, Monsieur 
Noisat built the guardian's house in the form 
of the Fortress of Saint Helena. 

Gevrey is near by, with an old ducal chateau, 
still well preserved, and supported by an ivy- 
grown square tower. Gevrey produces one of 
the most celebrated wines to be found on the 
lists of the restaurants mondaines throughout 
the world. It is the " Chambertin of Yellow 
Seal," coming from the Champs de Bertin, a 
narrow strip of land sloping down the flank of 
the hillside to the plain below. Another fa- 
mous vineyard at Gevrey which festoons itself 
between the height and the plain is that of 
Crais-Billon, which takes its name from the 
celebrated feudal fief of Crebillon. 

The Clos Vougeot, the cradle of an equally 
well known Burgundian wine, is scarce a half 
dozen kilometres away and may be classed 
among the historic chateaux of France. Still 



136 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

enclosed with its rampart of whitewashed wall, 
the great square of vineyard remains to-day as 
it has been since first developed by the monks 
of Citeaux. 

The property has, it is true, been dismem- 
bered and divided among many proprietors, but 
the two great square pavilions joined together 
originally gave the Clos that distinctive aspect 
which, in no small measure, it retains unto this 
day. Taken as a whole, it still possesses a 
proud mediaeval aspect, though the modern 
porte-cochere, an iron gate which looks as 
though it was manufactured yesterday in South 
Chicago — and perhaps was — somewhat dis- 
counts this. Years ago, when the Clos Vougeot 
was the nucleus of the many Vougeots of to- 
day, the grapes passed entirely through the 
wine-presses of the monks, who reserved the 
product entire to be used as presents to Popes 
and Princes. Thus Clos Vougeot was the model 
for all other ambitious, monastic vineyards, 
and those mediseval monks who excelled all 
others of their time as wine-growers were the 
logical inheritors of that Latin genius of an- 
tiquity which gave so much attention to the 
arts of agriculture. 

Hard by Vougeot is Romanee-Conti, first cele- 
brated under the ancient regime when the court- 



In the Cote d'Or 



137 




138 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

physician, Fagon, ordered its wine as a stim- 
ulant for the jaded forces of Louis XIV, a cir- 
cumstance which practically developed a war 
between the wine growers of Champagne and 
Burgundy, with a victory for the Cote d'Or, as 
was proper. To-day we are backsliders, and 
^' champagne " has again become fashionable 
with kings, emperors and the nouveau riche. 

The property known as Eomanee-Conti has 
been thus known since the Revolution, when 
this princely family of royal blood came into 
possession thereof. The old abbey is to-day, in 
part, turned into a beet-sugar factory, its thou- 
sand brothers and sisters now giving place to 
working men and women of the twentieth cen- 
tury, less picturesque and less faithful to their 
vocation, without doubt. 

Moulin-a-Vent was another of the near-by 
properties of the Citeaux monks, and to-day 
preserves the great colombier, or pigeon-house, 
as all may note who travel these parts by road. 
It is the most conspicuous thing in the land- 
scape for miles around, and looks as much like 
the tower of a military chateau as it does a 
dove-cote. 

The Foret Nationale de Citeaux was once the 
particular domain of the monastery, whose 
monks preserved and enveloped it with the 



In the Cote d'Or 139 

same degree of devotion whicli they bestowed 
upon their vineyards, planting villages here 
and there, of which the most notably pictur- 
esque and unspoiled still alive is that of Saint 
Nicholas-les-Citeaux, a red-roofed chimney- 
potted little village in close proximity to the 
uncouth fragments of the old conventual es- 
tablishment. 

Nuits, not to be confounded with Nuits-sous- 
Ravieres, is more famous for its wine cms than 
its monuments or its history. Besides a pic- 
turesque belfry and hotel-de-ville, both ex- 
cellent examples of the local architecture, it 
has no monuments of remark, although a sort 
of reflected glamour hangs over it by reason 
of its proximity to the site of the ancient Cha- 
teau de Vergy, when it was the capital of the 
tiny province belonging to the celebrated Bur- 
gundian family of this name. 

The metropolis of these parts is Beaune. It 
has been called a ^' vieille grande dame qui s'est 
faite ouvriere et marchande." And Beaune is, 
for a fact, all this. But by contrast with its 
commercialism its mediaeval aspect is also well 
preserved in spite of the fact that its manorial 
magnificence is much depleted. 

The contrastingly modern and mediaeval 
aspect, and to some extent its military charac- 



140 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

ter, makes Beanne most interesting. The ram- 
parts themselves have been turned into a series 
of encircling boulevards, but here and there a 
fragment of wall is left plunging sheer down to 
the moat below, which has not yet been filled up. 
This gives quite a suggestion of the part the 
old walls once played, an effect heightened the 
more by three or four massive towers and por- 
tals flanking the entrances and exits of the 
town. This at least gives a reminiscence of 
what the former city must have been when it 
was girded in its corselet of stone. 

Here and there a sober and dignified maison 
bourgeoise rears its Eenaissance head above a 
more humble and less appealing structure sug- 
gestive of an ancient prosperity as great, per- 
haps greater, than that which makes possible 
the comfortable lives of the city's fourteen 
thousand souls to-day. 

Another civic monument of more than ordi- 
nary remark is the watch-tower, or belfry, a 
remainder of the cities of Flanders, a most un- 
usual architectural accessory to find in these 
parts, the only other neighbouring example 
recalled being at Moulins in the Allier. 

In spite of all this, Beaune 's historic tale has 
little of blood and thunder in its make-up; 
mostly its experiences have been of a peaceful 



In the Cote d'Or 141 

nature, and only because the dukes so fre- 
quently took up their residence within its walls 
was it so admirably defended. 

Beaune was originally the seat of the Bur- 
gundian Parliament. Henri IV, who was par- 
ticularly wroth with all things Burgundian, 
treated the city with great severity after the 
revolt of Marechal de Biron, razing its castle, 
one of the most imposing in the province, to the 
ground. As a part of the penalty Biron was 
put to death. On the scaffold he said to his 
assistants " Va t'en! Va t'en! Ne me louche 
pas qu'il soit temps." Five minutes later his 
head fell into the basket and his king was 
avenged. 

Since this time Beaune has been little heard 
of save in the arts of peace; there is no city 
in France more calm to-day, nor ^' plus hour- 
geoise " than Beaune, and by the use of the 
word hourgeoise one does not attempt irony. 

The Hospice de Beaune is for all considera- 
tions a remarkable edifice; its functions have 
been many and various and its glories have 
been great. Formerly the Hospice stood for 
hospitality; to-day it is either a hospital, or a 
matter-of-fact business proposition; you may 
think of it as you like, according to your mood, 
and how it strikes you. 



142 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

The Benedictine Abbey de Fecamp, like 
Daupbiny's Grande Chartreuse, is but a busi- 
ness enterprise whose stocks and bonds in their 
inflated values take rank with Calumet and 
Hecla, Monte Carlo's Casino, or other specu- 
lative projects. The same is true of the wine 
exploitation of the monks of Citeaux at Clos 
Vougeot, and of the famous wine cellars of the 
Hospice de Beaune. We may like to think of 
the old romantic glamour that hangs over these 
shrines, but in truth it is but a pale reflected 
light. This is true from a certain point of view 
at any rate. 

Beaune 's Hospice, with its queer melange of 
churchly and heraldic symbols ranged along 
with its Hispano-G-othic details, is " more a 
chateau-de-luxe than a poor-house," said a six- 
teenth century vagabond traveller who was en- 
tertained therein. And, taking our clue from 
this, we will so consider it. " It is worth being 
poor all one's life to finally come to such a 
refuge as this in which to end one's days," said 
Louis XI. 

The foundation of the Hospice dates from 
1443, as the date on its carven portal shows. 
It was started on its philanthropic and useful 
career by Nicholas EoUin and his wife Gui- 
gnonne de Salins. It was then accounted, as it 



In the Cote d'Or 143 

is to-day, " a superb foundation endowed with 
great wealth. ' ' 

The desire of the founders was that the oc- 
cupants should be surrounded with as much of 
comfort and luxury as a thousand of livres of 
income for each (a considerable sum for that 
far-away epoch) should allow. 

This fifteenth century Hospice de Beaune is 
one of the most celebrated examples of the 
wood-workers' manner of building of its time. 
The role that it plays among similar contem- 
porary structures wherever found is supreme. 
It is only in Flanders that any considerable 
number of similar architectural details of con- 
struction are found. 

The general view of the edifice from without 
hardly does justice to the many architectural 
excellencies which it possesses. The heurtoir, 
or door-knocker, in forged iron, still hanging 
before the portal, is the same that was first 
hung there in the fifteenth century, and which 
has responded to countless appeals of wayfar- 
ers. The iron work of the interior court is of 
the same period. 

With the inner courtyard the aspect changes. 
On one side is the Flemish-Gothic, or Hispano- 
Gothic, structure of old, one of the most ornate 
and satisfying combinations of wooden gables 



144 Castles and Chateanx of Old Burgundy 

and pignons and covered galleries one can find 
above ground to-day. Frankly it is an impor- 
tation from alien soil, a transplantation from 
the Low Countries, where the style was first 
developed during the Spanish occupation in 
Flanders. 

Save for certain modifications in 1646, 1734 
and 1784 this portion of the edifice remains 
much as it was left by the passing of the good 
old times when knights, and monks as well, were 
bold. The Grande Salle, where the Chancelier 
Eollin first instituted the annual wine sale 
which still holds forth to-day, and the entrance 
portal were again restored in 1879, but other- 
wise the aspect is of the time of the birth of the 
structure. 

The Hospice de Beaune is properly enough 
to be classed among the palaces and chateaux 
of Burgundy, for its civic functions were many, 
besides which it was the princely residence of 
the chancellor of the Burgundian Parliament. 

The old College de Beaune, now disappeared, 
or transformed out of all semblance to its 
former self, was a one-time residence of the 
Dues de Bourgogne, and in addition the first 
seat of the Burgundian Parliament when its 
sittings were known as the Jours Generaux. 

A near neighbour of Beaune is Corton. 




PQ 



■^ 



tt^ 



In the Cote d'Or 145 

'^ C'est le Chambertin de la Cote de Beaune," 
said Monillefert, writing of its wine. Another 
neighbouring vineyard is that which surrounds 
the little village of Pernand. Its cru, called 
Charlemagne, has considerably more than a 
local reputation. Savigny-sous-Beaune is an- 
other place-name which means little unless it 
be on a wine-card. The little town is set about 
with sumptuous hourgeoise houses, and a local 
chateau bears the following inscription over its 
portal, " Les vins de Savigny sont nourrisants, 
theologiques et morhifuges." They have been 
drunk by countless hon vivants through the 
ages, and the Dues de Bourgogne were ever 
their greatest partisans. Mention of them ap- 
pears frequently in the accounts written of 
public and private fetes ; almost as frequently, 
one may note, as the more celebrated '' vin du 
Hospice." 

South from Beaune is Mersault, a tiny city 
of the Cote de Beaune. All about its clean- 
swept streets rise well-kept, pretentious dwell- 
ings, many of them the gabled variety so like 
the mediaeval chateaux, though indeed they may 
date only from the last three-quarters of a 
century, or since the Eevolution. 

An old feudal castle — the typical feudal 
castle of romance — has been restored and re- 



146 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

modelled, and now serves as Mersault's Hotel 
de Ville. All about is the smell of wine ; bar- 
rels of it are on every curb, and running rivers 
of the lees course through every gutter. 

Nolay, a trifle to the west, is scarcely known 
at all save as the name of a wine, and then it 
is not seen on every wine list of the popular 
restaurants. In the good old days it was the 
seat of a marquisat and was of course endowed 
with a seigneurial chateau. Nothing of suffi- 
cient magnitude, seemingly, exists to-day, and 
so one does not linger, but turns his attention 
immediately to the magnificent Chateau de 
La Eochepot, which virtually dominates the 
landscape for leagues around. 

In contrast with the vast array of chateaux 
de commerce scattered all through the Cote 
d'Or — the '' Golden Hillside " of the Eomans 
— is the Chateau de La Eochepot, marvellous 
as to its site and most appealing from all 
points. 

It was at Nolay that was born Lazare Carnot. 
It is the name of the grand homme who is al- 
most alone Nolay 's sole claim to fame. His 
ancestor has his statue on the little Place, and 
his grandson — he who was President of the 
French Eepublic — is also glorified by a fine, 
but rather sentimentally conceived, monument. 



In tlie Cote d'Or 147 

Lazare Carnot was born in a humble little 
cottage of Nolay, and this cottage, after all, is 
perhaps the town's most celebrated monument 
to the glorious name. 

The ancient home of the Sires de la Eoche, 
the Chateau de La Eochepot, to-day belongs to 
Captaine Carnot, the son of the former Presi- 
dent, who, thoroughly and consistently, has be- 
gun its restoration on model lines. 

The Sire de la Eoche-Nolay, who planned the 
work, hired one by the name of Pot, it is said, 
to dig a well within the courtyard. The price 
demanded was so high that he was obliged to 
turn over the property itself in payment. It 
was by this means, says historic fact or legend, 
that the line of Pots, big and little, came into 
possession. This Philippe Pot, by his mar- 
riage, brought the property to the Montmoren- 
cys and himself to the high office of Counsellor 
of Anne de Beaujeau. He became seigneur of 
the lands here in 1428, and was afterwards 
better known as ambassador of the Due de 
Bourgogne at London. His tomb was formerly 
in the Abbey of Citeaux, but has been trans- 
ported to the Louvre. 

After the Eochepots' tenure the property 
came to the SuUys, and in 1629 to the family De 
Fargis. During the Eevolution it was acquired 



148 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

as a part of the biens nationaux of the govern- 
ment, and in 1799 the donjon of the chateau was 
pulled down, the same which is to-day being 
rebuilt stone by stone on the same site. 

The present noble edifice is after all nothing 
more than a completion of the admirably 
planned reconstruction of the fifteenth century ; 
the restoration, or rebuilding, of to-day being 
but the following out of the plans of the orig- 
inal architect, a procedure which has seldom 
been attempted or accomplished elsewhere. It 
was done with the sixteenth century fountain 
of the Medicis in the Luxembourg Gardens 
(whose sculptures according to the original de- 
signs were only completed in 1839), but this is 
perhaps the only instance of a great mediaeval 
chateau being thus carried to completion. The 
restorations of Carcassonne, Saint-Michel and 
Pierrefonds are in quite another category. 

The Chateau La Rochepot was a develop- 
ment of the ancient Chastel-Rocca, which stood 
on the same site in the twelfth century, and 
which drew its name originally from its situa- 
tion. 

Elpinac, just to the west of La Rochepot, is in 
the heart of a veritable ' ' black country ' ' ; not 
the " black country " of the Midlands in Eng- 
land, but a more picturesque region, where the 




Chateau de La Rochepot 



In the Cote d'Or 149 

soot and grime of coal and its products mingle 
by turns with the brilliancy of foliage green 
and gold. In addition to drawing its fame from 
the mines roundabout, Epinac owes not a little 
of its distinction to its chateau, and a neigh- 
bouring Chateau de Sully which dates from the 
sixteenth century. 

The Chateau de Sully is a magnificent edifice 
built in 1567 for the Marechal de Saulx- 
Tavannes, and is to-day classed by the French 
government as a " monument historique." It 
was built from the plans of Ribbonnier, a cele- 
brated architect of Langres in the sixteenth 
century, and terminated only in the reign of 
Henri IV. It is an excellent type of the French 
Renaissance of the latter half of the sixteenth 
century. In form it is a vast rectangle with 
square pavilions, or towers, at each angle set 
diagonally. Though varied, its architecture is 
sober to a degree, particularly with respect to 
the res-de-chaussee. 

The inner court of this admirable chateau is 
surrounded by an arcaded gallery whose 
rounded arches are separated by a double col- 
onnette. The gardens are of the '^ jardin an- 
glais ' ' variety, so affected by the French at the 
time of the completion of the chateau, and are 
cut and crossed by many arms of the orna- 



150 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

mental water which entirely surrounds the 
property. 

After the tenure of the family of Tavannes, 
the property passed to those of Eabutin and 
Montaigu, and, for the last century, has been 
owned by the MacMahons. There are some 
fragments lying about which belong to another 
edifice which dates from the thirteenth century, 
but not enough to give the stones the distinction 
of being called even a ruined chateau. 

Epinac's chateau dates from at least two cen- 
turies before the Chateau de Sully, and is a 
resurrection of an old chateau-fort. Two great 
heavy towers remain to-day as the chief archi- 
tectural features, beside an extent of main 
building through whose walls are cut a series 
of splendid Gothic window frames. Tradition 
has it that these towers were originally much 
more lofty, but at the period when barons, 
whether rightly or wrongly, held their sway 
over their peers and anyone else who might be 
around, if the local seigneur was beaten at a 
tourney, the penalty he paid was to cut the tow- 
ers of his castle down one-half. This seems a 
good enough tale to tack to a mediaeval castle, 
as good as a ghost tale, and as satisfactory as 
if it were a recorded fact of history, instead of 
mere legend. 







>^ 



Chateau de Sullv 



In the Cote d*Or 151 

Originally these towers of the Chateau 
d'Epinac were of such an overwhelming height 
that they could be seen a hundred leagues 
around — this is local tradition again, and this 
time it is probably exaggeration. Three hun- 
dred miles is a long bird's-eye view indeed! 
Anyway a local couplet reads thus, and is 
seemingly justifiable: 



" Demene-toi, tourne toi, vire toi, 
Tu ne trouveras pas plus beau 



que moi." 

Epinac, too, is noted for its bottles, the fat- 
bellied, ample litres in which ripe old Burgundy 
is sold. '" Dame Jeans " and '' flacons " are 
here made by millions, which is only another 
way of referring to demijohns and bottles. Of 
their variety of shapes and sizes one may judge 
by the song the workers sing as they ply their 
trade : 

" Messieurs, messieurs, laissez nous faire 
On vous en donnera de toutes les f aeons " 

The glass industry of iSpinac, if not as old 
as its chateau, at least dates from the very 
earliest days of the art. 

Eetracing one's steps some forty kilometres 
to Chalon-sur-Saone one comes midway to 
Chagny. The railroad guides chiefly make men- 



152 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

tion of Chagny as a junction where one is 
awakened at uncomfortable hours in the night 
to change cars. Some of us who have passed 
frequently that way can call attention to the 
fact that Chagny possesses, among other won- 
ders, certain architectural glories which are 
worthy of consideration by even the hurried 
twentieth century traveller. 

Here is a fine twelfth century Eoman tower, 
a former dependency of some civic establish- 
ment, but now serving as the clocher of the 
church, a svelt but all imposing square broad- 
based tower of the local manor from which the 
seigneur of other days, even though he was not 
a ' ' grand seigneur, ' ' stretched forth his velvet- 
clad iron hand in mighty benediction over his 
good men and true. 

Besides this there is a monstrosity of a 
cupola of the modern chateau which is hideous 
and prominent enough to be remarked from 
miles around. 

Clearly, then, Chagny is much more than a 
railway junction. No one who stops more than 
a passing hour here will regret it, although its 
historic shrines are not many nor beautiful to 
any high degree. 



CHAPTER XI 

MACON, CLUNY AND THE CHAEOLLAIS 

Macon is a name well known to travellers 
across France, but its immediate environs are 
scarcely known at all save as they are recog- 
nized as a region devoted to the product of the 
vine. For a fact the romantic and historic lore 
which abounds within a short radius of the cap- 
ital of the Maconnais makes it one of the most 
interesting regions of mid-France. 

Lying just to the westward is the Charollais, 
whose capital, Charolles, the ancient fortress of 
the Comtes de Charolles, is surrounded by a 
veritable girdle of castles and donjons, the 
nearest two kilometres beyond the town. They 
formed in their prime an outer line of defence 
behind which the counts lived in comparative 
safety. Montersine, the nearest of these works, 
a vast rectangular donjon with echauguettes , 
must certainly have been the most formidable. 
Within ten leagues are the chateaux of Lugny, 
Rambeauteau and Corcheval — one of the most 

153 



154 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

ancient of tlie Charollais. There are also Ter- 
reaux-a-Verostres, the Eenaissance Chaumont 
at Saint-Bonnet-de-Joux and, finally, the for- 
tress of Commnne-sur-Martigny-le-Comte. 

Of these, that of Chaumont-la-Gruiche, two 
kilometres from Saint-Bonnet-de-Joux, is quite 
the most splendid when it comes to best fulfilling 
the mission of a luxurious Renaissance maison 
de campagne. It is to-day the magnificent twen- 
tieth century residence of the Marquis de la 
Guiche, but is a lineal descendant of the edifice 
built in the reign of Frangois Premier and ter- 
minated by Philibert de Guiche, who died in 
1607. At the time of the Saint Bartholomew 
massacre he was Bailli de Macon, and, through- 
out, the Maconnais and the Charollais took a 
firm stand against the killing off of the Protes- 
tants as an unholy means to a Christian end. 

Before the chateau is an equestrian statue 
of its sixteenth century chatelain, and the sta- 
bles, a great vaulted hall whose ceiling is upheld 
by more than fifty svelt colonnettes, are in no 
small way reminiscent of the still more exten- 
sive £]curies at Chantilly. There is also, as a 
dependency of the chateau, a remarkably beau- 
tiful Gothic chapel with fine old glass in its 
windows — Gothic of a late construction, be it 
understood, but acceptable Gothic nevertheless. 




Chateau de Chaumont-la-Guiche 



M^con, Cluny and the Charollais 155 

At Paray-le-Monail — a place of sainted pil- 
grimage, because of the miracle of the Sacre 
Cceur which took place here — is to be seen the 
luxurious dwelling of a local seigneur who was 
closely allied to the Comte de CharoUes. It is a 
palace in all but name, and were it on the well- 
worn travel track in Touraine would be ac- 
counted one of the marvels of the brilliant ar- 
ray of Eenaissance dwellings there. It holds 
this distinction to-day among the comparatively 
few who know it, and, as it serves the public 
functions of a Hotel de Ville, its future as a 
" monument historique '' worthy of preserva- 
tion seems assured. Chateau or palace it may 
not be ; it may be only a luxurious town house ; 
who shall make the distinction after all! Let 
the reader, or better yet, the visitor, to this 
admirable Renaissance wonder-work be assured 
that it is more royally palatial than many which 
have sheltered the heads and persons of the 
most fastidious of monarchs. 

South from Charolles, behind the hills of 
the Brionnais, almost on the edge of the an- 
cient Forez, in part only Burguudian, is the 
coquette hourgade (a French expression abso- 
lutely untranslatable) of Marcigny, all ochre 
and brown after the local colouring. It 
is a town of a great tree-bordered Place, or 



156 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Square, with decrepit old houses overhanging 
its narrow streets, made famous in the past by 
a celebrated Benedictine priory which received 
only the daughters of the nobility. Of this 
monastery there remains only the prior's pal- 
ace, a princely sort of abode which to-day has 
been turned into a hotel. Here one may experi- 
ence one of the greatest and most joyful sur- 
prises of French travel, and pick up his histor- 
ical lore on the spot. 

Leaving Marcigny for Semur-en-Brionnais, 
one passes a vestige of the feudal past in the 
shape of an elaborately decorated feudal tower. 
At a distance this decorative effect seems to be 
produced by shot still clinging to the walls, an 
effect that may be seen also at Arques in Nor- 
mandy and at Tarascon in the Midi. Here this 
is an illusion. As one approaches nearer it is 
easy to see these round bosses transform them- 
selves into mascarons, or sculptured decorative 
details, like the escutcheons and plaques so fre- 
quently seen stuck into the walls of so many 
civic edifices in Italy. This old tower is of a 
different species, but manifestl}^ it is a memo- 
rial of some sort. Its peaked head rises above 
a sort of pavilion, or loft, like a gigantic pigeon- 
house. There is a diminutive barbican on one 
side, and on the other are narrow slits of Gothic 




-- — -^^^^i -I 







Hotel de Ville, Paray4e-Monail 



y 



Macon, Cluny and the Charollais 157 

windows, as if for defence rather than as a 
means of letting light and air within. 

'■ ' This is some ancient historic monument, no 
doubt? " you query of some passing peasant. 
And to be precise he answers: " Yes, a tower." 
That is all the information you can get beneath 
its shadow, but you are content and go your 
way. It fulfils exactly your idea of what a me- 
diaeval donjon should be, and what it lacks in 
apparent authenticated history can be readily 
enough imagined by anyone with a predilection 
for such musings. 

Leaving the Charollais and the Brionnais, 
one turns toward Macon by the gateway of 
Cluny. Mediaevalism here is rampant in mem- 
ory, song and story, though the monuments are 
unfamiliar ones. It is an echo of the days 
when abbots and priors were often barons, and 
barons were magistrates who held the keys of 
life and death over other of mankind. These 
were the days, too, when the Pope was the real 
ruler of many a kingdom with another titular 
head. Large parcels of land, from the Black 
Sea to Brittany, fiefs, countships and even 
dukedoms, were church property, and others 
held their brief sway therein only by the toler- 
ance of the Pontiff. 

Seemingly exempt from this domination, the 



158 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

powerful monks of Cluny knew no lord nor mas- 
ter. On one occasion a Pope and a King of 
France, with numberless prelates and nobles in 
their train, took refuge in the old abbey, but not 
a brother put himself out in the least to do them 
honour. 

By the fifteenth century, the hour of deca- 
dence had rung out for Cluny; no more was it 
true 

" En tout pays ou twnt vente 
L'Ahle de Cluni a rente." 

It was at this time that the " arhitres des rois " 
lost their power. 

The great Abbey of Cluny may readily 
enough be included in any contemplation of the 
great civic and domestic establishments of these 
parts. The only difference is that in some cases 
the chatelains or chatelaines were princes or 
princesses instead of abbes or abbesses. 

Cluny 's destinies were presided over by an 
abbe, but kings and cardinals and popes all, at 
one time or another, came to dwell within its 
walls. 

When Cluny was but a mere hamlet, in the 
year 910 a. d., Guillaume, Due d'Aquitaine et 
Comte d'Auvergne, founded this abbey, which 
became one of the most celebrated in the uni- 



Macon, Cluny and the CharoUais 159 

verse. From the first its abbes were cardinals 
and princes of Cbnrch and State. 

In 1245 Pope Innocent IV. visited the abbey 
with a train of twelve cardinals and scores of 
minor churchmen. The Sainted Louis and the 
queen, his mother, enjoyed hospitality within 
its walls, and the Emperor of Constanti- 
nople, and a throng of followers, all found a wel- 
come here; and this without incommoding the 
four hundred monks who were attached to the 
foundation. Pope Gelasse II died at the abbey, 
and the Archbishop Guy of Vienne was here 
elected Pope, under the name of Calixtus II, 
by a conclave assembled within its halls. To-day 
the pride of the former powerful abbey rests 
only on its laurels of other days. Its superb 
basilica has practically disappeared. Only its 
foundations, five hundred and fifty feet in 
length, are to be traced. The extensive library 
has disappeared, and only certain of the walls 
and roofs and a few minor apartments of the 
former palatial conventual buildings remain to 
suggest the one time glory. 

The rich plain of Cluny was, in 910 a. d., but 
a forest called the ^' Valle Noire " when the 
Abbe Bernon with a dozen brothers founded the 
celebrated Abbey of Cluny, called the '* cradle 
of modern civilization. ' ' 



160 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Of the conventual buildings the most remark- 
able features still standing are the south arm 
of the great transept of the abbey church, the 
massive octagonal tower, of a height of sixty 
metres, another slighter octagonal docker, and 
the Chapelle des Bourbons. 

Cluny's old houses, or such of them as re- 
main, have been to a large extent rebuilt and re- 
modelled, but still enough remains to suggest 
that the old monastic city was a place of lux- 
ury-loving and worldly citizens as well as 
monks. Here and there a flying stair, a bal- 
cony, a loggia, or a rez-de-Chausee arcade sug- 
gests a detail almost Italian in its motive. 
Colonnettes divide a range of windows and pi- 
lasters support stone balconies and terraces 
here and there in a most pleasing manner, and 
with a most surprising frequency, — a fre- 
quency which is the more pleasing, since, as has 
been said, scarcely anything of the sort is to be 
seen here in more than fragmentary form, 
though indeed all the architectural orders and 
devices of the ingenious mediaeval builder are 
to be noted. The Revolution respected Cluny, 
but the Empire and " La Bande Noire " con- 
demned it to destruction. 

The Abbatial Palace, a palatial dependence 
of the abbey, where lodged visiting potentates 



Macon, Cluny and the Charollais 161 

and prelates, escaped entire destruction, and is 
to-day the chief ornament of the town. A na- 
tional educational institution now occupies the 
halls and apartments of this great building 
where lords and seigneurs and churchmen once 
held their conclaves. 

A fine Gothic portal leads to the inner court 
of this magnificent edifice, which was erected 
by two abbes, Jean de Bourbon and Jacques 
d'Amboise. Each had built a separate dwelling 
on either side of the great portal. That of the 
Cardinal de Bourbon is unlovely enough, as such 
edifices go, but has an air of a certain sumptu- 
ousness notwithstanding. That of Jacques 
d'Amboise is a highly ornate work of the Ee- 
naissance, and now serves as the Hotel de Ville, 
whilst the other houses a local museum and 
library, 

A garden of the formal order surrounds the 
two edifices and covers a goodly bit of the 
ground formerly occupied by the other build- 
ings attached to the abbey. Entrance to this 
garden, and its Palais Abbatial, as the en- 
semble is officially known, is through a double 
Eomanesque portal, as much a militant note as 
the rest is religious. 

Cluny 's Hotel Dieu is another remarkable 
souvenir of old. Within are various monu- 



162 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

ments and statues of churchnien and nobles 
which give it at once a lien on one's regard. 
There is a luxurious monument to one of the 
Abbes of Cluny; another, that the Cardinal de 
Bouillon erected to his father, Maurice de la 
Tour d'Auvergne, Due Souverain de Bouillon, 
Prince Souverain de Sedan. 

Here and there about the town an old feudal 
tower or house-front juts out in close com- 
munion with some banal modern facade, but the 
whole aspect of the city of some four thousand 
inhabitants to-day is, when viewed from a dis- 
tant approach, as of a feudal city with no mod- 
ernities whatever. Near acquaintance dis- 
abuses one of this idea, but, regardless of this, 
the aspect of Cluny, the monastery and the city, 
is one of imposing and harmonious grandeur, 
hardly to be likened to any similar ensemble in 
France or beyond the frontiers. 

Near Cluny, in the heart of the " Black Val- 
ley,'* is the Chateau de Cormatin, belonging to 
a M. Gunsbourg, and containing an important 
collection of pictures and furniture, all of them 
antique, which are cordially submitted to the 
gaze of the curious upon a diplomatic re- 
quest. 

Eising from the plain, on the road to Tour- 
nus, is the Chateau de BranQion, a feudal relic 



Macon, Cluny and the CharoUais 163 

and not much more, but proclaiming its former 
military glory as if its history had been epoch- 
making, which it probably was not, as there is 
but scant reference to it in local annals. 

As one approaches Macon by road from the 
north or west, great villas and '' chateaux de 
commerce " line every kilometre of the way. 
Some are ancient and historic, though in no 
really great sense ; others are modern and ban- 
ally, painfully, well-kept and whitewashed — 
only the badigeon is pink or blue or green, 
painted one can readily believe by the artist 
(sic) descendants of the Italians who once in- 
habited the region in large numbers. There are 
overhanging balconies on all sides; balus- 
trades, terraces and loggias relieve the mo- 
notony of most of the fagades, and indeed, it is 
as if a corner of Italy had been transported to 
mid-France. 

Macon is a picturesque ensemble of much 
that is ancient, but the smugness of the place, 
its undeniable air of modernity and prosperity, 
have done much to discount what few well con- 
served architectural charms it still possesses. 
This is true of great churches and palatial 
dwellings alike, though there are many unde- 
niably fine bits here and there which, if one 
only knew, perhaps possess a history as thrill- 



164 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

ing as that enjoyed by many more noble edi- 
fices. 

For one of the best impressions of Macon it 
is possible to have, there is nothing better than 
Turner's painting " Macon," or a photographic 
copy thereof. It is a drawing which until re- 
cently was never engraved. Turner and his en- 
gravers never dared attempt it, so complex was 
the light and shadow of the vintage sun shining 
on the hillsides and valleys of the Cote d'Or. 
Eecently Frank Short made a mezzotint of it, 
and it stands to-day as one of the most express- 
ive topographical drawings extant. 

Macon was originally the capital of a petit 
pays, the Maconnais, and is to-day, in local par- 
lance. In former times it was the governmental 
seat of a line of petty sovereigns, from the day 
of Louis-le-Debonnaire until the country passed 
into the hands of the ducal Burgundians. From 
this time forth, though forming a component 
part of the great duchy, the region was settled 
frequently upon various members of the parent 
house as a vassal state where the younger 
branch might wield a little power of its own 
without complicating the affairs of the greater 
government. 

In Eevolutionary times Macon was consid- 
ered by the Republicans as " a hateful arista- 



Macon, Cluny and the Charollais 165 

cratic hole." This being so, one wonders that 
more souvenirs of royalty have not remained. 

In feudal times the city was enclosed by an 
enceinte cut with six great gates, supported by 
an inner citadel. These walls and bastions 
were demolished later, and the city was almost 
alone among those of Burgundy to freely open 
its doors to the Ligueurs and Henri IV. From 
this time on important historical events seem 
to have avoided Macon. 

The site of Macon's ancient citadel is now 
occupied by the Prefecture. It was formerly 
the Episcopal Palace, a regal dwelling which 
the bishops of other days must have found 
greatly to their liking. It is the nearest thing 
to a chateau which Macon possesses to-day. 

The Hotel de Ville is a banal structure of the 
eighteenth century, the gift of the Comte de 
Montreval, formerly his family residence. The 
Palais de Justice is also a made-over hotel- 
privee and has some architectural distinctions, 
but there is nothing here to take rank among 
the castles and chateaux of the rest of the Bur- 
gundian countryside. 

Southwest from Macon, scarce thirty kilo- 
metres away, is a romantic little corner of old 
France known to the French themselves — 
those who know it at all — as the Pays de La- 



166 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

martine. The little townlets of Milly and Saint- 
Pont were the cradle and the refuge of Lamar- 
tine, who so loved this part of France extend- 
ing from the Loire to Lac Leman and the Alps, 

The political world of the capital, into whose 
vortex the great litterateur was irresistibly 
drawn, had not a tithe of the effect upon his 
character as compared with that evoked by the 
solitudes of his Burgundian patrie and his 
Alpes de Chambery. 

Milly, here in the midst of the opulent plains 
and hillsides of Burgundy, is a spot so calm 
and so simply environed that one can not but 
feel somewhat of the inspiration of the man 
who called it his " chere maison.^^ 

A half a dozen kilometres from Milly is 
Saint-Pont surrounded by a magnificent fra- 
ming of rounded summits forming one of those 
grandiose landscapes of which Lamartine so 
often wrote: 

" Oui, Vhomme est trop petit, ce spectacle I'ecrase." 

Here is the Chateau de Lamartine, not a 
tourist sight by any means, at least not an 
over-done one, but a shrine as worthy of con- 
templation and admiration as many another 
more grand and more popular. 

Seated snugly at the foot of a wooded slope, 



Macon, Cluny and the CharoUais 167 

the chateau, flanked with two great towers, 
lifts its serrated sky-line proudly above the 
reddish, ochre- washed walls (a colour dear to 
the folk of the Maconnais) high above the level 
of the roofs of the town below. 

A more massive square tower sets further to 
the rear, and a tourelle, with a pointed candle- 
snuffer roof, accentuates the militant aspect of 
the edifice, though indeed its claims rest en- 
tirely on the arts of peace to the exclusion of 
those of war. 

Here, in the family chateau, Alphonse-Marie- 
Louis-de-Lamartine passed the happiest years 
of his life. This was at a time when the pomp 
of power which he afterwards tasted as Minis- 
ter of Foreign Affairs, after the abdication of 
Louis Philippe, had no attraction for him. 

" II est sur la colline 
Une blanche maison, 
Une tour la domine, 
Un buisson d'aubepine 
Est tout son horizon." 

As Lamartine himself wrote : * ' Nothing here 
will remind one of luxury; it is simply the 
aspect of a great farm where the owners live 
the simple life in a great block of a silent dwell- 
ing," These words describe the Chateau de 
Lamartine very well to-day. 



168 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Saint-Pont and the Chateau de Lamartine 
are well worth half a day of anyone who is 
found at Macon and not hard pressed to move 
on. 

Near Saint-Pont is the ancient Chateau de 
Noble, belonging, in 1558, to Nicolas de Pisa, 
and, in 1789, to Claude de la Beaune. It is not 
a splendid structure in any architectural sense, 
but a most curious and appealing one. Its chief 
distinction comes from its two pointed coiffed 
towers, one at either end of a high sloping 
gable. 

Eepairs and restorations made since the Kev- 
olution have deprived it of the ancient ram- 
parts which once entirely surrounded it, but 
the romantic and curious aspect of the main 
body of the structure, and those all-impressive, 
svelt, sky-piercing towers, make it seem too 
quaint to be real. Certainly no more remark- 
able use of such adjuncts to a seigneurial cha- 
teau has ever been made than these towers. 
Here they are not massive, nor particularly tall, 
but their proportions are seemingly just what 
they ought to be. They are, at any rate, en- 
tirely in accord with the rest of the structure, 
and that is what much modern architecture 
lacks. 



Macon, Cluny and the Charollais 169 




CHAPTEE XII 

IN" THE BEAUJOLAIS AND LYONNAIS 

South from Chalon, by tlie banks of the 
Saone, lies the Beaujolais, a wine-growing 
region which partakes of many of the character- 
istics of the Cote d'Or itself. Further south, 
beyond Macon, the aspect of the Lyonnais is 
something quite different. All is of a bustle 
and hustle of the feverish life of to-day, whilst 
in the Beaujolais pursuits are agricultural. 
Each of these regions is profoundly wealthy 
and prosperous, an outgrowth, naturally 
enough, of the opulent times of old, for here, 
as in the heart of Burgundy, the conditions of 
life were ever ample and easy. 

Throughout the countryside of the Beaujo- 
lais and the Maconnais one notes a manner of 
building with respect to the meaner dwellings 
which, to say the least, is most curious. These 
small houses are built of a species of sun-dried 
bricks or lumps of clay. It seems satisfactory ; 
as satisfactory as would be an adobe dwelling 

170 



Beaujolais and Lyonnais 171 

— ^ in a dry climate. But here in times of flood 
those built in the river bottoms have been 
known to melt away like the sand castles of 
children at the seashore. 

The present Departement of the Saone-et- 
Loire was evolved from the very midst of the 
Burgundian kingdom, and comprises chiefly the 
mediaeval Comtes of the Autunnois, Chalonnais, 
Maconnais and CharoUais. The Eomans were 
the real exploiters of all this region, and only 
with the pillage of the Normans, and the 
successive civil and religious wars, did the 
break-up of Burgundy really come to be an as- 
sured fact. 

Chalon-sur-Saone itself is most attractive — 
in parts. As a whole it is disappointing. Fran- 
Qois Premier built the fortifications of Chalon 
in 1521, and half a century later Charles IX 
constructed the citadel — "to hold the town 
in subjection, and the inhabitants in igno- 
rance. ' ' 

Dijon was the city of the mediaeval counts; 
Chalon was a city of churchmen. Nevertheless 
the bishops of the episcopal city bore the title 
of Counts, and of its churches which remain 
none is more typical of the best of Eomanesque 
in France than the nave and side aisles of 
Chalon 's Cathedral de Saint Vincent. 



172 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Chalon's monuments of the feudality are few 
indeed to-day; they and their histories have 
been well nigh forgotten, but here and there 
some fine old gable or portico springs into view 
unannounced, and one readily enough pictures 
again the life of the lords and ladies who lived 
within their walls, whilst to-day they are given 
over to matter of fact, work-a-day uses with 
little or no sentimental or romantic atmosphere 
about them. 

There is no distinct official edifice at Chalon 
which takes up its position as a chateau, or 
manoir, at least none of great renown, though 
a rebuilt old church now transformed into a 
hotel of the second or third rate order is one 
of the most curiously adapted edifices of its 
class anywhere to be seen. 

What a great family the Chalonnais were is 
recalled by the fact that in the sixteenth century 
all the folk of the city were regarded as cousins. 
This is taking the situation by and large, but 
certain it was that a community of family liens 
as well as interests did tend to make this rela- 
tionship notable. Furthermore each of the 
trades and metiers herded by themselves in real 
clansman fashion, the nail-makers in the Rue 
des Cloutiers, the boiler-makers in the Rue des 
Chaudronniers and the barrel-makers in the 



Beaujolais aiid Lyonnais 173 

Eue des Tonneliers. And there was a quarter, 
or faubourg, devoted to the priests and monks, 
as well as another where none but the nobility, 
were allowed to be abroad. 

To the west of Chalon are two famous vine- 
yards. Touches and Mercurey, surrounded by 
mere hamlets, there being no populous centres 
nearer than Givry or Chalon. One remarks 
these two famous vineyards because of their 
repute, and because of the neighbouring superb 
ruin of the mediseval Chateau de Montaigu 
which crowns a hill lying between the two 
properties. 

In the neighbourhood of Chalon are numerous 
little towns of no rank whatever as historic or 
artistic shrines, but bearing the suffix of Royal. 
It is most curious to note that many have 
changed their nomenclature — as it was before 
the Eevolution. Saint Gengoux-le-Royal and 
ten other parishes all dropped the Royal, and 
became known as Saint Gengoux-le-National, 
etc. Donzy-le-Royal was not so fortunate in 
its position. Saint Gengoux has gained noth- 
ing by its spasm of republicanism. It is not 
more national to-day than Cavaillon or Car- 
pentras, whereas the suffix Royal meant, if it 
meant anything, that it was an indication of 
its ancient rank when it belonged directly to 



174 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

the crown of France. Republicanism did not 
change its allegiance, only its name. 

The diligence from Paris stopped at Chalon- 
sur-Saone in the old days and passengers made 
their way to Lyons by the river. Colbert it was 
who sought to develop the service of coches 
d'eau on the Saone between Chalon and Lyons. 
He carried the thing so far, in 1669, that he sup- 
pressed the public diligence by land which had 
formerly made the journey between the two 
capitals. This was not accomplished without 
a live protestation from the residents of the ter- 
minal cities. 

In the last days of the malle-poste, when 
Chalon was the end of the journey from Paris, 
four steamboats of a primitive order competed 
for the privilege of carrying passengers from 
Chalon to Lyons. 

To-day the service has been suppressed ; the 
^' pir OS chapes," as they were called, have gone 
the way of the mail coaches. Travel to-day is 
accomplished with more comfort and more ex- 
pedition. 

Below Chalon, following down the Saone, 
within a league, one comes to Toise, with a cele- 
brated chateau, almost wholly ignored to-day 
when checking off the historical monuments of 
France. And this is true in spite of the fact 



Beaujolais and Lyonnais 175 

that it was here within the walls of the Chateau 
de Toise that was signed the famous treaty be- 
tween Henri IV and the Due de Mayenne. The 
chateau is simply an admirable Renaissance 
monument of its time with no very remarkable 
features or history save that noted above. This 
is enough to make it better known and more 
often visited, if only glanced at in passing. 
The author hopes the suggestion may be taken 
in earnest by those interested. 

Midway between Macon and Chalon is Tour- 
nus, the site of a chateau-fort built by the 
Franks, and also of an abbey founded by 
Charles-le-Chauve in 875 a. d. This monarch 
gave the abbey a charter as proprietor of the 
city of Tournus in consideration of the monks 
putting it and its inhabitants under the protec- 
tion of the Virgin and Saint Philibert. He also 
made the congregation of monks of the order 
of Saint Benoit " fermiers " of this '' celestial 
domain." 

The Abbes of Tournus were a powerful race, 
rivalling the princes and dukes of other fiefs, 
and owning allegiance only to the king and 
Pope, more often to the latter than to the for- 
mer. Among them were numbered no less than 
eight cardinals in the fifty-nine who ruled the 
city and the '* domain." 



176 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

The monastery itself has become a sort of 
institution, a secular lodging house, but its fine 
church still remains as one of the most famous 
Romanesque-Burgundian examples of its time. 

Above Tournus, high on the hill back of the 
town, sits a disused ancient fabric, a former 
Benedictine abbey. Its abbes had the right to 
wear the pontifical vestments, and to administer 
justice to the city and its neighbouring depend- 
encies. More like an antique fortress than a 
religious foundation, it is the most ambitious 
and striking edifice now to be seen in Tournus. 

Tournus has an artistic shrine of great mo- 
ment and interest, although its architectural de- 
tails comport little with the really dignified 
examples of mediseval architecture. It is the 
birthplace of the painter Greuze, and before its 
arcades rises a monument to his memory. The 
great painter of the idealist school was born 
here. In the local museum are nearly five hun- 
dred designs from his hand. 

Opposite Tournus, in mid-Saone, is a strip of 
flat island known as the Ile-de-la-Palme, a mor- 
sel of alluvial soil respected by centuries of 
spring floods which have passed it by on either 
side, and indeed, often over its surface. The 
Helvetians, quitting their country in ancient 
times, invaded Gaul and made use of the Ile-de- 



Beaujolais and Lyonnais 177 

la-Palme to cross the Saone, aided by either 
pontoons or rafts. Centuries later, after the 
bloody battle of Fontenay, the son of Louis- 
le-Debonnaire held a conference on tliis isle 
with regard to the division of the conquered 
territory. Thus it is that the Ile-de-la-Palme 
in the Saone has something in common with 
that other historic island in the Bidassoa 
where France and Spain played a game of 
give and take in the sixteenth century. 

A short distance from the east bank of the 
Saone is Romenay in the heart of the Cha- 
lonnais. It is a relic of an ancient fortified 
city, a townlet to-day of less than six hundred 
inhabitants, though once, judging from the 
remains of its oldtime ramparts, much more 
extensive and influential. 

Saint Trivier-de-Courtes, like Eomenay, 
has little more than a bare half a thousand 
of population to-day, though it was once a 
noble outpost planted by the Dues de Savoie, 
the masters of Bresse, against the possible 
invasion of the Burgundians and the French 
from the north. 

At Bage-le-Chatel, between Macon and 
Bourg, rises a grim reminder of the feudal- 
ity. It is the silhouette of the fine old castle 
of the ancient Seigneurs de Bage. 



178 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Passing Macon by, and still following the 
Saone, one comes in a dozen or twenty kilo- 
metres to Thoissey, a town which has not been 
greatly in evidence these latter days. It is a 
somnolent little city of the ancient Principality 
of Dombes, that disputed ground of the Bur- 
gundians and the Savoyards in the middle ages. 
Only from the fact that it was the birthplace of 
Commandant Marchand of the ill-fated Fas- 
choda expedition would it ever have been men- 
tioned in the public prints of the last genera- 
tion. 

In good old monarchial days it was different. 
Then Thoissey set an aristocratic example to 
many a neighbour more prosperous and better 
known to-day. The Princes de Dombes had a 
chateau here, and they embellished the local 
Hospice in a way that made it almost a rival of 
that other establishment of its class at Beaune. 
Throughout Thoissey there were, and are still, 
many admirable examples of the town houses 
of the nobles and courtiers of the little State of 
Dombes. Thoissey was the miniature capital 
of a miniature kingdom. The local '' college " 
still shows evidences of a luxuriant conception 
of architectural decoration with its finely sculp- 
tured window frames and doorways. 

The most striking incident of Thoissey 's ca- 



Beaujolais and Lyonnais 179 

reer was when the Seigneur de Bage attacked 
the Seigneur de Thoissey, who was at the time 
the Sire de Beaujeau, in his stronghold. The 
latter called the Due de Bourbon to his aid and 
thus brought about an inter-province imbroglio 
which necessitated the intervention of the King 
of France as mediator, though without immedi- 
ate success. The litigation finally went before 
Pope Clement VII (a French Pope, by the 
way), and only in 1408, a quarter of a century 
after the feud began, did the Due de Bourbon, 
who meantime had become also the Sire de 
Beaujeau, succeed in throwing off his adver- 
saries. 

Thoissey during the time of the Ligue, or 
more particularly its Seigneur, threw in its 
lot with Mayenne, who ultimately, when he 
finally went over to his royal master, caused 
the Chateau de Thoissey to be razed to earth. 
This is why to-day one sees only the heap of 
stones, locally called ^' the chateau," which, to 
be appreciated, require a healthy' imagination 
and some knowledge of the situation. 

At Belleville-sur-Saone is a little strip of the 
earth's surface called by the French the finest 
panorama in the world and " le plus bel lieu 
de France.*' It is beautiful, even beyond 
words, a smiling radiant river valley with 



180 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

nearly all the artistic attributes which go to 
make up the ideal landscape. Just how near it 
comes to being the finest view in the world is 
a matter of opinion. The New Zealander thinks 
that he has that little corner of God's green 
earth, and so does many a down-east farmer, 
to say nothing of the man from the Missouri 
Valley and the occasional Scotch Highlander. 

The tiny little city of Anse has few recollec- 
tions for most travellers, but it possesses an ad- 
mirable ruin of a chateau-fortress, with two 
towers bronzed by time and still proudly erect. 
This ruin, together with the memory that Au- 
gustus once had a palace here in the ancient 
Anita of the Romans, and the neighbouring 
ruin of the chateau of the Sires de Villars over 
towards Trevoux, are all that Anse has to-day 
for the curious save its delightful situation in 
a bend of the Saone. 

Opposite Belleville-sur-Saone is Montmerle. 
In the middle ages it was one of the sentinel 
cities which guarded the Principality of 
Dombes. Sieges and assaults without number 
were its portion, from the Bourguignons, the 
troops of the Sire de Beaujeau, the Dauphinois 
and the Counts and Dukes of Savoy. 

The imposing ruins of the former chateau- 



Beaujolais and Lyonnais 181 

fortress tell the story of its mighty struggle 
which endured for nearly a century. For the 
most part the bulk of the material of which it 
was built has disappeared, or at least has been 
built up into other works, but the massive signal 
tower which once bolstered up the main portal 
still rises high above the waters of the Saone. 
The tower supposedly dates from the twelfth 
century — the period to which belonged the 
chateau — and is distinguished by its hardiness 
and height rather than for its solidity and 
massiveness. 

At Farcins, near-by, is a magnificent and still 
habitable chateau of the end of the reign of 
Henri IV, built by Jean de Seve, Conseiller du 
Roi, on the plans of Baptiste Androuet du 
Cerceau. From Montmerle one may see the 
towers and roofs of half a dozen other minor 
chateaux of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies scattered here and there through the 
Beaujolais, but nothing distinctive arrests one's 
attention until Villefranche and Trevoux are 
reached. 

The Sires de Beaujeau, from motives of pol- 
icy if from no other, ever respected the privilege 
of Villefranche (founded by Humbert IV). 
The traditions of Villefranche 's old Auberge du 



182 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Mouton are classic, and have been used time 
and again by playwright and novelist without 
even acknowledgment to history. It was here 
in the ' ' Free City ' ' beside the Ehone that Ed- 
ward II swore to observe the city's claims of 
municipal liberty. 

Villefranche has no other notable monuments 
save the Hotel de Ville of to-day, which is an 
admirable Eenaissance town house, and another 
equally striking in the Eue Nationale. The lat- 
ter is almost palatial in its proportions. 

Just below Villefranche is Trevoux, the an- 
cient capital of the Principality of Dombes. It 
comes into the lime-light here only because of 
its ruined castle on a height above the town 
which travellers by road or rail cannot fail to 
remark even if they do not think it worth while 
to become intimately acquainted. 

The old castle is situated on the summit of a 
hill to the west of the town, its two black- 
banded towers of the middle ages proclaiming 
loudly the era of its birth. The octagonal don- 
jon is a master- work of its kind and dates from 
the twelfth century. Since the Eevolution this 
remarkable donjon has been shorn of a good 
two-thirds of its former height, and the effect 
is now rather stubby. With another twenty 
metres to its credit it must indeed have been 



Beaujolais and Lyonnais 183 

imposing, as well by its construction as its situ- 
ation. It is no wonder that this powerful de- 
fence was able to resist the attack of the Sire 
de Varambon, who, after capturing the city, 
sought vainly to take the chateau in 1431. It 
was a cruel victory indeed, for the wilful sei- 
gneur, not content with capturing the city, drove 
out all its wealthy and comfortably rich inhabit- 
ants and charged them a price of admission to 
get in again, mutilating their persons in a shock- 
ing manner if they did not disgorge all of their 
treasure as the price of this privilege. 

The local seigneur, his family and immediate 
retainers, were meanwhile huddled within the 
walls of the chateau and only escaped starva- 
tion at the hands of the victor by his having 
tired of the game of siege and by his with- 
drawal, carrying with him all the loot which 
he could gather together and transport. 

It was at Trevoux that the Jesuits compiled 
the celebrated Dictionary and Journal which 
made such a furor in the literary annals of the 
eighteenth century. 

With the exception of FrauQois Premier all 
of the French monarchs from Philippe- Augusta 
down to Louis XIV acknowledged the independ- 
ence of the Principality of Dombes, and owed 
them the allegiance of supplying men and 



184 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
money in case they were attacked. The Parlia- 
ment met at Trevoux and the Principality was 
one of the earliest and smallest political divi- 
sions of France to coin its own money. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE FEANCHE COMTE : AUXONNE AND BESANgON" 

East of Dijon, from tlie centre of which radi- 
ated Burgundian influence and power, was a 
proud and independent political division which, 
until 1330, never allied itself intimately with 
the royal domain of the French kings nor with 
Burgundy. From this time, as a part of the 
Burgundian dukedom, it retained the right to 
be known as the Franche Comte, and was even 
then exempted from many impositions and du- 
ties demanded of other allied fiefs: ^' Bur gun- 
dice Comitatus, Liher Comitatus," was its of- 
ficial title. 

It is characteristic of the independent spirit 
of the people of these parts that they should tell 
Henri IV, who praised the wine they offered 
him, when he was making a stay among them, 
and was being entertained in Besan§on's cita- 
del, that they had a much better one in the 
cellar which they were saving for a more au- 
gust occasion. 

185 



186 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

The Franche Comte is in no sense a tourist 
region; its varied topography has not been 
given even a glance of the eye by most conven- 
tional tourists, and its historical souvenirs have 
been almost entirely ignored by the makers of 
romances and stage-plays. Switzerland-bound 
travellers have an excellent opportunity to be- 
come acquainted with this comparatively little 
known corner of old France as they rush across 
it by express train via Pontarlier, but few avail 
themselves thereof. For this reason, if no 
other, the architectural monuments of the 
Franche Comte come upon one as genuine sur- 
prises. 

From Dijon our way lay through Genlis and 
Auxonne to Besangon, and there is no better 
way of approaching the heart of things, though 
it will require some courage on the part of 
travellers by train to accommodate themselves 
to the inconvenient hours of departure and ar- 
rival. The traveller by road will have a much 
easier and a much more enjoyable time of it; 
and right here is a suggestion of a new ground 
for touring automobilists who may be tired of 
well-worn roads. It is just as enjoyable to hunt 
out historic monuments with an automobile as 
with a Cook's ticket and a railway train — more 
so, some of us think. It would certainly not 



The Franche Comte 187 

have been possible for the makers of this book 
to have otherwise got over the ground covered 
herein, so let not the ultra-sentimentalist decry 
the modern mode of locomotion. 

Winding its way between the confines of Bur- 
gundy and the Comte the highroad from Paris 
to Pontarlier and Switzerland led us first to 
Auxonne. Genlis we passed en route and al- 
most had a thrill over it by recalling the notori- 
ous Comtesse de Genlis. We racked our brains 
a moment and then remembered that the cele- 
brated '^ has hleu " hailed from somewhere in 
Picardy, so, then, this particular Genlis had no 
further interest for us, above all in that there 
was no chateau in sight. 

Auxonne (the old Ad Sonam of the Eomans, 
afterwards corrupted into Assona, then Asso- 
nium and finally as it is to-day) was but a dozen 
kilometres beyond Genlis, and, sitting astride 
the great highway from Paris to Geneva, was 
early a fortified place of great strategic im- 
portance. Vauban traced its last ramparts and 
it was thought likely to hold its rank for all 
time, but now the fortifications have disap- 
peared and the city no -longer takes its place 
as a frontier outpost, that honour having been 
usurped by Besangon in the Jura. 

Of the military and feudal past there are still 



188 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

vivid memories at Auxonne. The chateau-fort 
is still there, built in different epochs by 
Louis XI, Charles VIII and Louis XII, and 
these works combined to make an edifice seem- 
ingly all-resistant, or at least formidable to a 
high degree. The chateau is still there, in part 
at least — not much has actually been despoiled, 
but actually the railway station is more mili- 
tant in aspect. The stranger coming to Aux- 
onne for the first time — unless he be prepared 
beforehand — will have grave doubts at first as 
to which is the chateau and which is the gare. 
The latter has a crenelated cornice, meurtrieres 
pierced in its walls, and the vague appearance 
of bastions, all of which are also found in the 
real in the old chateau grimly overlooking the 
swift-flowing Saone. The enormous flanking 
towers of the real chateau, in spite of the city 
having been shorn of its prime military rank, 
are still kept in condition for the service of 
long-range guns, for the French are ever in a 
state of preparedness for the invasion which 
may never come. The lesson of '' 71 " was well 
learned. 

On the great entrance portal of the chateau 
is blazoned a stone-sculptured hedgehog, the 
devise of Louis XII, and in opposing niches are 
two carven angels holding aloft an escutcheon. 



The Franche Comte 189 

Another doorway is hardly less impressive, 
though somewhat vague as to the purport of 
its ornament, which stands for nothing military 
or even civic. 

This introduction to the militant glory of the 
Auxonne of other days is a ripe indication of 
the dignity with which the place was one day 
enhanced. Of a population to-day of something 
less than five thousand souls, the city shelters 
nearly three thousand soldiers of all arms. Its 
warlike aspect can hardly be said to have 
changed much from what it was of old in spite 
of the fact that its importance is lower down 
in the scale. 

Another warlike reminder is +he statue which 
rises proudly in the Place d'Armes. It is that 
of the Sous-Lieutenant Bonaparte as he was 
upon his arrival at Auxonne, a pallid youth just 
out of the military school of Brienne. 

In the plain neighbouring upon Auxonne, a 
sort of mid-France Flanders, is a populous 
town with a momentous and romantic history, 
albeit its architectural monuments, save in frag- 
ments, are practically nil. The Eevolutionary 
authorities took away its old name and called 
it " Belle Defense," in memory of a heroic re- 
sistance opposed by the place to the invading 
Due de Lorraine in 1616. Gallas had freed the 



190 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Saone with thirty thousand men, and with Car- 
dinal La Valette at the head of his army (a 
cardinal whom Eichelieu had made a general) 
found Dijon so well guarded that he turned on 
his steps and attacked what is to-day Saint 
Jean-de-Losne. Fifty thousand soldiers in all 
finally besieged the place, and less than fifteen 
hundred of the inhabitants, and a garrison of 
but a hundred and fifty, held them at bay. The 
Due d'Enghien, the future Grand Conde, then 
Grovernor of Burgundy, was able to send a fee- 
ble body of reinforcements and thus turn the 
tide in favour of the besieged. 

For this great defence Louis XIII exonerated 
the city from all future taxes, and the grand 
cross of the Legion d'Honneur was allowed to 
be incorporated into the city arms, as indeed 
it endures unto to-day. The tracings of the 
former fortifications are plainly marked, 
though the walls themselves have disappeared. 

Dole is commonly thought of as but a great 
railway junction. Besangon and Montbeliard 
are the real objectives of this itinerary through 
the Franche Comte and the half-way houses are 
apt to be neglected. For fear of this we 
" stopped over " at Dole. 

Dole's historic souvenirs are many and have 
in more than one instance left behind their 



The Franche Comte 191 

stories writ large in stone. The present Hotel 
de Ville was the old Palais du Parlement, built 
in the sixteenth century, from the designs of 
Boyvin, who was himself President of the 
Chambre at the time. Within the courtyard of 
this old Parliament House is an impressive don- 
jon of a century earlier, the Tour de Vergy, 
which offers as choice a lot of underground 
cells, or oubliettes, as one may see outside the 
Chateau d'lf or the Castle of Loches. The 
Palais de Justice at Dole, with a magnificently 
carved portal, was formerly the Convent des 
Cordeliers and dates from 1572. 

The memory of Besan§on in the minds of 
most folk — provided they have any memory of 
it at all — will be recalled by the opening lines 
of Stendhal's '' Rouge et Noir." '^ Besangon 
n'est pas seulement une des plus jolies villes de 
France, elle abonde en gens de coeur et d' es- 
prit." 

The flowing Doubs nearly surrounds the 
*' Roc " of Besangon with a great horse-shoe 
loop which gives a natural isolation and makes 
its citadel more nearly redoubtable than was 
ever imagined by Vauban, its builder. 

From an artistic point of view Besangon 's 
monuments are not many or varied if one ex- 
cepts the Palais Granvelle and the military de- 



192 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

fences, which are made up in part of a number 
of mediaeval towers and Vauban's citadel. 
There are four great sentinel towers surround- 
ing the city, all dating from the period of 
Charles Quint, but the city gates, piercing the 
fortification walls, were built also by Vauban 
between 1668-1711, and are by no means as 
ancient as they look. 

The Palais Granvelle, of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, has a fine dignified monumental aspect 
wholly impressive regardless of its lack of 
magnitude and the absence of a strict regard 
for the architectural orders. Liberties have 
been taken here and there with its outlines 
which place it beyond the pale of a thoroughly 
consistent structure, but for all that it undeni- 
ably pleases the eye, and more. And what else 
has one a right to demand unless he is a 
pedant? In general the civic and domestic 
architecture of the Franche Comte are of a 
sobriety which gives them a distinction all their 
own; the opposite is true of the churches, tak- 
ing that at Pont-a-Mousson as a concrete ex- 
ample. 

The street fagade of the Palais Granvelle is 
undeniably fine, with a dignity born of simplic- 
ity. Its interior fa§ade, that giving on the 
courtyard, is freer in treatment, but still not 




Palais Granvelle, Besancon 

' 1 



The Franche Comte 193 

violent, and its colonnaded cloister forms a 
quiet retreat in strong contrast with the bustle 
and noise which push by the portal scarce 
twenty feet away. 

The Palais Granvelle actually serves to-day 
the purpose of headquarters of Besan§on's 
Societe Savante. 

Nicolas Perrenot, Seigneur de Granvelle, its 
builder (1533-1540) was the chancellor of 
Charles Quint, and brother of the Cardinal de 
Granvelle, minister of Charles Quint and Phi- 
lippe II. He was descended from a noble Bur- 
gundian family, not from a blacksmith as has 
faultily been given by more than one historian. 

Charles Quint, in writing to his son, after the 
death of his chancellor — ' ' in his palace at 
BesanQon," said: " My son, I am extremely 
touched by the death of Granvelle. In him you 
and I have lost a firm staff upon which to lean." 

The centre of the admirable town house of 
the sixteenth century is occupied by a vast 
courtyard surrounded by a series of Doric col- 
umns in marble, supporting a range of low ar- 
cades. The principal fagade is built of " mar- 
hre du pays/' which is not marble or anything 
like it, but a very suitable stone for building 
nevertheless. It might be called '' near-mar- 
ble " by an enterprising modern contractor, 



194 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

and a fortune made off it by skilful advertising. 
It is better, at any rate, than armoured cement. 

The structure rises but two stories above the 
rez-de-chaussee, but is topped off with an '' at- 
tique " (a word we all recognize even though 
it be French) and three great stone lucarnes 
ornamented with light open-work consoles a 
jour. 

Each story is decorated at equal intervals by 
a superimposed series of columns. The first is 
Doric, the second Ionic and the third Corin- 
thian, and each divides its particular story into 
five travees. 

The entrance portal is particularly to be re- 
marked for its elegance. It is flanked on either 
side by a Corinthian column and is surmounted 
by a pair of angel heads in bronze. 

Drawing closer and closer to the frontier, the 
face of everything growing more and more war- 
like the while, one comes to Montbeliard, prac- 
tically a militant outpost of modern France, 
though actually its importance in this respect 
is overshadowed by neighbouring Belfort. At 
Belfort Bartholdi's famous lion — a better 
stone lion by the way than Thorwaldsen's at 
Luzerne — crouches in his carven cradle in 
the hillside ready to spring at the first rumours 
of war. If France is ever invaded again it will 



The Franche Comte 



195 



not be by way of the gateway wMch is defended 
by Belfort and Montbeliard, that is certain! 

Montbeliard is a little fragment of Germany 
that has become French. Rudely grouped 
around the walls of the old chateau of the Wur- 
temburgs, the town remains to-day an anomaly 
in France, more so than the greater Strass- 




bourg and Metz are to Germany, because they 
have become thoroughly Germanized since " la 
guerre " and the '' annexation," which are the 
half whispered words in which the natives still 
discuss the late unpleasantness. 

How did this little German stronghold be-' 
come French? One may learn the story from 
** Le Marechal de Luxembourg et Le Prince 
d'Orange," by Pierre de Segur, better even 



196 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

than he may from the history books. The tale 
is too long to retell here but it is undeniably 
thrilling and good reading. The town, the cha- 
teau and the local duke were, it seems, all cap- 
tured at one fell swoop. There was no defence, 
so it was not a very glorious victory, but it came 
to pass as a heroic episode and a Wurtemburg 
castle thus came to be a French chateau. 

The Chateau de Montbeliard has all the 
marks of a heavy German castle. It has little 
indeed of the suggestion of the French manner 
of building in these parts or elsewhere. To- 
day it serves as a barracks for French soldiers, 
but its alien origin is manifest by its cut and 
trim. 

The history of Montbeliard has been most 
curious. Its name was derived from the Latin 
Mons Peligardi (in German Munpelgard) and 
the principality, as it once was, had a council of 
nine maitres-hourgeois, as the city councilmen 
were called. The principality comprised the 
seigneuries of Hericourt, Blamont, Chatelet and 
Clemont. For a time it was a part of the Duchy 
of Lorraine, then it passed to the house of 
Montfaucon, and then to the Wurtemburgs, 
who built the castle. The Treaties of Luneville 
and Paris made it possible for the tricolor to fly 
above the castle walls, otherwise it might have 



The Franche Comte 197 

remained a German town with a burgomaster 
instead of a French ville with a maire. 

The Tour Neuve of the chateau dates from 
1594 and the Tour Bossue from 1425. The main 
fabric was restored in such a manner that it 
would seem to have been practically remodelled, 
if not actually rebuilt, in 1751. It preserves 
nevertheless the cachet that one expects to see 
in a castle of its time, albeit that an alien fla- 
vour hovers around it still. 

It is worth continuing in this direction a step 
farther to Belf ort in the ' ' territory, ' ' although 
it is actually beyond the confines of Burgundy's 
'' Free County." Belf ort is worth seeing for 
the sake of its ' ' Lion, ' ' though if one is pressed 
for time he may take a ride in Paris over to 
the Rive Gauche and see the same thing in 
the Place de Belfort, or at least a miniature 
replica of it. 

In the midst of the great entrenched camp of 
Belfort rises " La Chateau," as Belfort 's cita- 
del is known. It sets broad on its base nearly 
five hundred metres above sea-level. The cha- 
teau and the " Roc " were first fortified in the 
sixteenth century, since which time each year 
has added to the strength of the defences until 
to-day it is perhaps the most strongly fortified 
of all the frontier posts of France. 



198 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

It is at the base of the massive " Roc " which 
bears aloft the chateau that is sculptured Bar- 
tholdi's celebrated lion. Its proportions are 
immense, at least seventy-five feet in length and 
perhaps forty in height. 

The ancient Tour de la Miotte is all that re- 
mains of a fortress of the middle ages, so Bel- 
fort's claims rest on something more than its 
artistic monumental remains, though the sil- 
houette and sky-line of the grouping of its cha- 
teau and citadel are imposingly effective and 
undeniably artistic. 



CHAPTER XIV 

ON THE SWISS BORDER: BUGEY AND BRESSE 

** La Bresse^ le Bugey, le Val-Romey et la 
Principaute de Dombes " was the Mgh-sounding 
way in whicli tliat hinterland between Burgundy 
and Savoy was known in old monarcbial days. 
Of a common destiny with the two dukedoms, it 
was allied first with one and then with the 
other until the principality was nothing more 
than a name; independence was a myth, and 
allegiance, and perhaps something more, was 
demanded by the rulers of the neighbouring 
states. 

In Roman times these four provinces were al- 
lied with the I-Lyonnais, but by the Burgundian 
conquerors forcibly became allied with the 
stronger power. 

Bresse of itself belonged to the Sires de 
Bage and in 1272 became a countship allied 
with the house of Savoy, which in 1601 ceded it 
to the king of France. 

Local diction perpetuates the following qua- 

199 



200 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
train wMch well explains the relations of 
Bresse with the surrounding provinces. 

" Pont-de-Veyle et Pont-de-Vaux, 
Saint Trivier at Romeno 
Sont quaV villes bien renommo ; 
Mias viv' Macon pour beir 
Et Bourg pour mangi." 

Bresse, more than any other of the subdivi- 
sions of mediseval and modern France, is en- 
dowed with renown for the sobriety and purity 
of the life of its people; and family ties are 
*' respectable and respected," as the saying 
goes. Above all has this been notably true of 
the nobility, who were ever looked up to with 
love and pride by those of lower stations. 
Among the common people never has one been 
found to willingly ally himself, or herself, with 
another family who might have a blot on its 
escutcheon. The marriage vow and its usages 
are simple but devout, and in addition to the 
usual observations the peasant husband grants, 
as a part of the marriage contract, a black 
dress to be worn at Toussaint and the Jour des 
Mortes, and to all family mourning celebra- 
tions. If a widow or widower seeks another 
partner the event is celebrated by a ball — for 
which the doubly wedded party pays. 




Women of Br esse 



On the Swiss Border 201 

The village fetes of Bresse, still continued in 
many an out-of-the-way little town, are the 
usual drinking and dancing festins of the comic 
opera merry-making variety. They are simple 
and proper enough exhibitions, and never de- 
scend to the freedom of speech and manners 
that such exhibitions often do in the Midi. 

None more than Brillat-Savarin has carried 
the fame of Bresse abroad. A one-time mem- 
ber of the Cour de Cassation, he perhaps was 
better known to the world at large as the father 
of gastronomy in France. His '' Psychologie 
de Gout, ' ' if nothing else, would warrant giving 
Mm this title. 

Val-Eomey — the Vallis Eomana of the Em- 
perors — and Bugey had for overlords the 
Sires de Thoire et Villars. It, too, came in time 
to the Dues de Savoie, by gift and by heritage, 
and also was ceded in 1601 to Henri IV, by vir- 
tue of the Treaty of Lyons. 

Dombes, principality in little, although at 
first a part of the kingdom of Burgundy, later 
fell by favour of circumstances to the Sires of 
Beauge and afterwards to the Sire de Beau- 
jeau. Finally it turned its fortunes into the 
hands of the Bourbons, when Mademoiselle de 
Montpensier came to rule its destinies. She 
turned it over to Louis XIV as payment for his 



202 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

authorization for her marriage with Monsieur 
de Lauzun. 

The princess made this sacrifice of love in 
vain, and Dombes fell to the Due de Maine, 
while Lauzun languished in the prison Pigne- 
rolo, for the king did not abide by his back- 
handed favouritism. 

On the border between the mediaeval dukedom 
and the principality of Dombes, to-day the De- 
partements of the Saone et Loire and the Ain, 
is a race apart from other mankind hereabouts. 
In numerous little villages, notably at Boz and 
Huchisi, one may still observe the dark Saracen 
features of the ancients mingled with those of 
to-day. A monograph has recently appeared 
which defines these peoples as something quite 
unlike the other varied races now welded into 
the citizens of twentieth century France. 

Modern vogue, style, fashion, or whatever 
you may choose to call it, is everywhere fast 
changing the old picturesque costume into 
something of the ready-made, big-store order, 
but to stroll about the highways and byways in 
these parts and see men in baggy Turkish trou- 
sers with their coats and waistcoats tied to- 
gether by strings or ribbons in place of conven- 
tional buttons, is as a whiff of the Orient, or at 
least a reminder of the long ago. 



On the Swiss Border 203 

The women dress in a distinct, but perhaps 
not otherwise very remarkable, manner, save 
that an occasional " Turk's-Head " turban is 
seen, quite as Oriental as the culotte of the men. 
A blend of Spain, of Arabia, of Persia and of 
Turkey could not present a costume more droll 
than that of the " Chiserots/' as these people 
are known. 

Another petit pays, and one of the most re- 
markably disposed, politically, of all the old 
provinces which go to make up modern France, 
is what is known even to-day as the Pays de 
Gex. It belonged successively to the house of 
Joinville, to the Comte de Savoie and to the 
States of Berne and Geneva. The Due de Sa- 
voie, by the treaty of 1601, ceded it to France, 
but a strip is still neutral ground for both 
Switzerland and France, which by common ac- 
cord allows Geneva full access to the territory 
in order to establish its communications with 
Swiss territory on the west and south shores of 
Lac Leman, particularly to that region beyond 
Saint-Gingolphe. 

The name Gex is evolved from the Latin 
Gesium, the capital of a kingdom owning but 
a length of six leagues and a width of about 
half as much. The Bernese and the Genevois 
conquered it in turn, and to-day its personality 



204 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

is nil except that one recalls it as the head cen- 
tre for the trade in Gruyere cheese, the kind 
which we commonly call Swiss cheese. It is 
in the Pays de Gex, on the railway line from 
Gex to Geneva, that one notes the name of Fer- 
nay and endeavours to recall for just what it 
stands. At last it comes to one. Fernay pos- 
sesses a literary shrine of note that all who 
pass this way may well remember. The wonder 
is that one did not recall it with less effort. 

The whole town is virtually a monument to 
Voltaire. It was he who built the town, prac- 
tically; that is, he furnished the land and the 
means to erect many of the meaner houses 
which surround the chateau which he came him- 
self to inhabit, and from which, for a time, the 
rays of his brilliant wit were shed over the 
whole literary world of the eighteenth century. 

After his flight from Berlin, Voltaire, the 
Seigneur de Fernay, founded Fernay, within 
six kilometres of the frontier and Geneva, and 
sought to attract Swiss watch-makers thither 
that a similar industry might there be estab- 
lished on French soil. Surely Voltaire was 
more of a benefactor of his race than he is 
usually considered. 

The Voltaire manor, or chateau, albeit that it 
is nothing grandly monumental, still exists with 




r% 



fe. 



O 
^ 



-Si 



On the Swiss Border 205 

furniture and portraits of the time of the satir- 
ist. At the entrance to the chateau is a tiny 
chapel, built also by Voltaire when he was in 
that particular mood. Over its portal it bears 
the following words, " Deo Erexit Voltaire 
MDCCLXI." Arsene Houssaye called the 
words an impertinence, and, admitting Vol- 
taire's genius, one is inclined to assent to the 
dictum. '^ My church," said Voltaire, '' is 
erected to God, the only one throughout Chris- 
tendom; there are thousands to Saint Jean, to 
Saint Paul and to all the rest of the calendar, 
but not another in all the world to God." 

Such a romantically storied region as this 
might naturally be expected to abound in his- 
toric souvenirs and monuments almost without 
end. To an extent this is true, but such sou- 
venirs and recollections of the past more fre- 
quently present themselves than do actual cas- 
tle walls, be they ruined or well-preserved. 

The antique lore of ancient Bresse goes back 
to Druidical days. Stone axes, Celtic tombs and 
medals, skeletons wearing bracelets and anklets 
of iron and copper have been found in great 
numbers, and from these have been built up a 
vague history of the earliest times. 

Of Eoman remains there are still evident 
many outlines of the camps of the legionaries, 



206 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

innumerable evidences and tracings of old 
Eoman highroads, with here and there frag- 
ments of aqueducts, baths and temples. Near 
Bourg have been discovered various medals of 
the ancient colony of Massilia, on the shores of 
the Mediterranean, and one wonders what were 
the relations of the Ostragoth peoples of Bresse 
with the Phoceans of Marseilles. History is 
non-committal. 

There are no magniJScent monumental re- 
mains of Roman times left in these parts save 
occasional fragments and towers which presum- 
ably served for signalling purposes as a part 
of the fortifications of the Saracens. For any 
architectural monuments of note one can not 
with certainty go back to a period earlier than 
that in which the Burgundian power was at its 
height, or to the time of Charles-le-Chauve in 
the ninth century. 

The feudal memories of Bresse are chiefly the 
ruins of the seigneurial chateau at Chateauneuf, 
the chief -town of the Val-Romey. Built high 
on the summit of a peak of rock and surrounded 
by deep-cut fosses, and walls which drop down 
sheer like the sides of a precipice, this chief 
feudal residence of the Val-Eomey was more a 
fortress than a delectable domestic establish- 
ment, though it served the functions of both, as 



On the Swiss Border 207 

was frequently the case with the feudal edifice 
of its class. What it lacked in actual luxury or 
comfort it made up for in the added protection 
offered by its sturdy walls. This was notably 
true of all seigneurial residences which occupied 
isolated positions in the feudal epoch. Its walls 
to-day, shorn of any aesthetic beauty which they 
may once have possessed, and crumbling and 
moss-grown on every side, still rise a hundred 
or more feet in air above their rocky founda- 
tions, and in many places have a thickness of a 
dozen or fifteen feet. They built well in those 
old days, before the era of armoured cement 
covered with stucco. Modern builders make 
great claims for their product, but will it last? 
No man knows, and, from the fact that masonry 
cannot be built even to-day so as to stand up 
against shot and shell, one doubts if modern 
work is really as durable as that of a thousand 
years ago. The military architecture of feudal 
France, so often closely allied with that of the 
civic and domestic varieties, was preeminent in 
its time. 

The religious architecture, the monasteries 
and churches, of these parts have certainly 
more ornate reminders of the undeniable opu- 
lence of the region than the secular examples 
still existing. 



208 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
Connecting Bresse and the Franche Comte is 
a curious little battery of townlets that have 
never been mentioned in the guide-books, nor 
ever will be. A motor flight from Bourg-en- 
Bresse to Besan§on evolved the following : First 
came a smug little town named briefly Pierre. 
It possesses a chateau, too, reckoned as one of 
the really remarkable examples of the style of 
Burgundian building. It certainly looks all that 
is claimed for it, though we saw it only in the 
dim twilight of a May evening. The impression 
was all-satisfying, and, that being what one 
really travels for, one should be content. 

For a neighbour there was Champdivers, 
which recalled a memory of Odette de Champ- 
divers, the one time companion of the poor 
Charles VI. during his latter unhappy days. 
Truly this was proving for us a most romantic 
region, a region utterly neglected by the great 
world of tourists who pick out the big-type 
names on the map and make up their itineraries 
accordingly. 

On the banks of the Doubs, near the border 
of Bresse and the Comte, lies Molay, whose sei- 
gneur, Jacques de Molay, the G-rand Master of 
the Templars, died at the stake in Paris during 
the playing of the great drama of 1314. 

After Molay a succession of dwellings con- 



On the Swiss Border 209 

tinues to the important frontier town and for- 
tress of Dole, a decayed county-town whose of- 
ficial importance, even, has been absorbed by 
the fortified city and watch-making metropolis 
of Besangon. Dole will never be reckoned a city 
of celebrated art, but regardless of this its fine 
old Eenaissance houses and Parliamentary 
Palace of other days all follow the architectural 
scheme which makes the civic and secular edi- 
fices of mid-France the most luxurious of their 
epoch. 

Bourg, the capital of Bresse, has ever been 
one of the most important towns of France ly- 
ing near the eastern frontier, though indeed as 
a fortified place the modern French military 
authorities give it scant value from a strategic 
point of view. Six great national highways 
cross and recross the city, and many of the nar- 
row streets of the days of the dukes have lately 
given way to avenues and boulevards. From 
this one puts Bourg down as something very 
modern — which it is, in parts. 

Built on the site of the ancient Forum Sebu- 
sianorum, the city came in time under the sway 
of Burgundy, of the Empire of the States of 
Savoy, and finally definitely allied itself with 
France in 1601. 

Bourg is in the heart of Bresse. Its inhab- 



210 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

itants are kno'wii as Bressans de Bresse, in con- 
tradistinction to those who live on the borders 
of the old province. " Viv Macon pour heir et 
Bourg pour mangi " — Macon for drinking and 
Bourg for eating — say the Bressans of 
Bresse, and with good reason. 

The Bressan costume is most peculiar, at 
least so far as that of the women is concerned ; 
the men might be of Normandy or Poitou. 
Only on a fete day will one see the real costume 
of the women of Bresse, but on such occasions 
the mere sight of the triple-decked, steeple-like 
coiffe — a good replica of an ornamental foun- 
tain in miniature — will suggest nothing so 
much as the costume of a masquerade. 

The only palatial domestic or civic edifice 
notable in Bourg to-day is the Parliament Build- 
ing of the ancient Etats de la Bresse. Of the 
many princely dwellings of the time of the 
Seigneurs de Bage, and of the Savoyan princes 
of the sixteenth century, not a fragment re- 
mains, though the records tell of a splendid 
chateau-fort and an episcopal residence of like 
luxurious proportions which existed at the time 
of the union of Bresse with France. This 
may be the edifice of the fitats which now shel- 
ters the Musee Lorin. The longbeards disagree 
as to this, but the casual observer will be quite 



On the Swiss Border 211 

willing to accept the suggestion. The monu- 
ment is certainly a splendid one, even if its his- 
tory is vague. 

The famous Eglise de Brou at Bourg is in- 
timately bound with the life of the nobles of 
mediaeval times, as closely indeed as if it had 
been a secular establishment where lived lords 
and ladies and their courts. A description of 
this classic wonder of architectural art can have 
no extended place here. It must suffice to recall 
that it was erected by Philibert le Beau in com- 
pletion of a vow made by his mother Margue- 
rite de Bourbon. Within are the magnificently 
sculptured tombs of the two royalties and 
another of Marguerite d'Autriche. The sculp- 
ture of these famous tombs has been the sub- 
ject of more than one monograph, and indeed 
the whole ornate structure — church, tombs and 
sculpture — is a never-ceasing source of sup- 
ply to critics and archaeologists. 

The Italian style, in the most gracious of its 
flowering forms, is here united with the flam- 
boyant Flemish school in a profligate profusion. 
The lEglise de Brou is one of the greatest mar- 
vels of Eenaissance architecture in all the 
world. 

North of Bourg, on the road to Louhans, 
through the heart of the Bresse so dear to gas- 



212 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

tronomes, are tlie well conserved remains of the 
Chateau de Montcony, and those of more ruin- 
ous aspect which represent the departed glories 
of Duretal. 

Cuiseaux' monumental remains are even 
more scant, and the town itself hardly resem- 
bles a town of Burgundy. It is more like a 
place in Switzerland or the Jura ; indeed, to the 
latter region it once belonged, and only came to 
be Burgundian when the princes of the house, 
through some petty quarrel, took it for their 
own by force, as was the way in those gallant, 
profligate days. 

Cuiseaux does possess, however, a ruined 
aspect of wall and rampart which suggests that 
it must have been one of the most admirably 
defended places of the neighbourhood, judging 
from an old fifteenth century plan preserved in 
the Bibliotheque Nationale. Then it was proud 
of its ramparts which possessed thirty-six pro- 
tecting towers. To-day but two of these senti- 
nels remain, and it were vainglorious to claim 
too much for them, particularly since the mod- 
ern plan of the town makes it look as conven- 
tionally dull and uninteresting as an Arab 
ghourhi in the Atlas, or an adobe village in 
Arizona. 

At Pont-de-Vaux, between Bourg and Lou- 



On the Swiss Border 213 

hans, one comes to a trim little town, an out- 
growth of the ancient village of Vaux, belong- 
ing at one time to the Sires de Bauge, and later 
to the Due de Savoie, Charles III, who made it 
a Comte in 1623. It afterwards grew to the 
dignity of a Duche, so made by Louis XIII. 
Much is preserved to-day of the ancient manner 
of building, and, all in all, it is quite as satisfac- 
tory an example of a mediseval town as has been 
left untouched by the mature hand of progress 
of these late days. 

Nantua is known to the traveller in modern 
France only as another of those lakeside re- 
sorts which are such delightful places of so- 
journ for those who would avoid for a time the 
strife of great cities. It is a gem of a town, set 
in a diadem of beauty which surrounds the tiny 
lake of the same name, but it has no historic 
monuments, if we except the tomb of Charles le 
Chauve in the church. This at least entitles it 
to a passing comment here, this and the memory 
of a happy afternoon we passed by the crystal 
waters of this brilliant lake. 

Midway between Bourg and Macon is Pont- 
de-Veyle. This old feudal town was once the 
particular possession of a brilliant line of sei- 
gneurs of France and Savoy, the last, under 
FranQois I, being the Comte de Furstemburg, 



214 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

who acquired it as a payment for certain levies 
of Germans that lie had furnished the French 
monarch. 

The ancient manor of the Furstemburgs still 
exists, but it is hardly of a proportion or archi- 
tectural merit to have distinction. Here, too, 
are the reconstructed remains of the eighteenth 
century of a family chateau of the Marechal de 
Lesdiguieres, whose fortunes were more inti- 
mately bound up with Gap and Vizille than with 
this less accessible property. Like Vizille it 
has been '' put into condition " in recent years, 
and, while lacking the mossy, romantic air of 
medisevalism, fulfils most of the demands of the 
worshipper at historic shrines. 

There is still standing here an old city gate 
dating from the thirteenth century, and this in 
turn is surmounted by a belfry of the sixteenth. 
The ensemble suggests that it was once a part 
of a more noble fortress-chateau. The Maison 
des Savoyards was probably a princely rest- 
house when the nobles of its era passed this 
way. Beyond its name, and the elaborate deco- 
rations of its facade, there is nothing else to 
support the conjecture. Its history, whatever 
it may have been, is lost in the confusion with 
which many ancient records are covered to-day. 

Turning southwest on the highroad, from 



On the Swiss Border 215 

Burgundy into Savoy through the heart of 
Dombes, one soon reaches Chatillon-les-Dombes. 
As its name indicates, it is a descendant of the 
town which grew up around an ancient sei- 
gneurial residence here of the fourteenth cen- 
tury. Chiefly this is memory only, for the frag- 
mentary debris takes on no distinction to-day 
beyond that of any other indiscriminate pile of 
stones and mortar. 

Montluel, near-by, is in much the same cate- 
gory. It is famous only for the fact that it was 
here that Ame VII was presented the Duche de 
Savoie by Sigismond in 1496, and that in 
troublous, mediaeval days it was the safe haven 
for many political refugees from Geneva and 
Florence. Montluel, in Latin Mons Lupelli, was 
the capital of the fief of Valbonne. The re- 
mains existing to-day, and locally called '' le 
chateau," are those of an edifice which had an 
existence and a career of sorts in the eleventh 
century, but which since that date has no re- 
corded history. 

To Pont d'Ain and Belley is still on the di- 
rect road to Savoy. On the great " route in- 
ternationale " from Paris to Turin sits the 
ancient chateau of Pont d'Ain, which owes its 
name to the old bridge which once spanned the 
Ain at this point. 



216 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

On an eminence high above the river is the 
old chateau built by the Sires de Coligny in 
1590, the ancestors of the great admiral. Pre- 
viously it had been the residence of the rulers 
of Savoy, and to this luxurious dwelling the 
princesses of the house invariably came to give 
birth to the inheritors to the throne. Louise de 
Savoie, the mother of Frangois Premier, was 
born here in 1476, and here died Philibert II, 
Due de Savoie, in 1504, he whose death gave 
impetus to the erection of that magnificent mau- 
soleum, the Eglise de Brou. 

Belley, a matter of fifty kilometres further 
on, is a veritable gateway through which passed 
the ancient Eoute de Savoie along which trotted 
the palfreys and rolled the coaches of Eenais- 
sance days. 

Lacking entirely mediaeval monuments of 
note, Belley ranks, judging from positive docu- 
mentary evidence, as one of the most ancient 
towns of the border province lying between 
Burgundy and Savoy. Its episcopate dates 
from the year 412 a. d., and, if its feudal monu- 
ments have disappeared, its great episcopal pal- 
ace of later centuries is certainly entitled to be 
considered an example of domestic architecture 
quite as appealing as many a feudal chateau 
of more warlike aspect. 



On the Swiss Border 217 

So strong a centre of the church as Belley 
was bound to be prominent politically, and its 
bishops bore as well the title of Princes of the 
Empire. 

Herein has been given an epitome of a round 
of travel in this forgotten and neglected border 
country, lying between old Burgundy, Switzer- 
land and Savoy. What it lacks in elaborate 
examples of feudal and Eenaissance architec- 
ture it makes up for in storied facts of history, 
which though too extensive to be more than 
hinted at here are as thrilling and appealing 
as any chapter of the history of old France. 
For that reason, and the fact that some ac- 
quaintance with these tiny border provinces is 
necessary for a proper appreciation of the ex- 
terior relations of both Burgundy and Savoy, 
the detour has been made. 



CHAPTEE XV 

GRENOBLE AND VIZILLE : THE CAPITAL OP THE DAU- 
PHINS 

Dauphiny owes its name as a province to the 
rightful name of the eldest sons of the French 
kings down to the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. The actual origin of the application of 
the name seems to have been lost, though the 
Comtes de Vienne bore a dolphin on their bla- 
zon from the eleventh century to the fourteenth, 
when Comte Humbert, the last Dauphin, made 
over his rights to the eldest son of Philippe de 
Valois, who acquired the country in 1343, be- 
stowing it upon his offspring as his patrimony. 
Thus is logically explained the absorption of 
the title and its relations with the province, 
for it was then that it came first to be applied 
to that glorious mountain region of France ly- 
ing between the high Alpine valleys and the 
shores of the Mediterranean. 

The Dauphin, Humbert II, first established 
the Parlement du Dauphine at Saint Marcellin 
in 1337, but within three years it was trans- 

218 



Grenoble and Vizille 



219 



f erred to Grenoble, where it held rank as third 
among the provincial parliaments of France. 

Saint Laurent, the Grenoble suburb, not the 
mountain town hidden away in the fastness of 
the mountain 
massif of the 
Chartreuse, oc- 
cupies the site 
of an ancient 
Gaulish founda- 
tion called Cu- 
laro. Its name 
was later 
changed to Gra- 
tianopolis, out 
of compliment 
to the Emperor 
Gratian, which 
in time evolved 
itself into Gren- 
oble, the capital 
of '' the good 
province of our 
most loyal Dauphin." 

Grenoble's chief architectural treasure is its 
present Palais de Justice, the ancient buildings 
of the old Parliament of Dauphiny and its 
CoTir des Comptes. Virtually it is a chateau of 







.mi 

m 



Toorclle I 

Palais I 

oifeTustrce | 
GrENOBIoE 



) 



220 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

state and is, moreover, the most important 
monument of the French Eenaissance existing 
in the Ehone valley. Begun under Louis XI, 
it was terminated under Francois Premier, 
when, following upon the Italian wars, it was 
a place of sojourn for the kings of France. 

On entering the portal at the right one comes 
directly to the Chambre du Tribunal of to-day, 
its walls panelled with a wonderful series of 
wood-carvings coming from the ancient Cour 
des Comptes, the work of a German sculptor, 
Paul Jude, in 1520. 

The portal to the left leads to the Cour 
d'Appel — the Chambres des Audiences Solen- 
nelles — whose ceiling was designed in 1660 by 
Jean Lepautre, a great decorative artist of the 
court of Louis XIV, and carved by one Guille- 
baud, a native of Grenoble. The ancient chapel, 
or such of it as remains, where the parliament 
heard mass, is reached through this room. The 
ancient Chambre des Comptes dates from the 
reign of Charles VIII. 

The Grande Salle on the upper floor is one 
of the notable works of its epoch with respect 
to its decorations, though the noble glass of its 
numerous windows was destroyed long years 
ago, leaving behind only a record of its magnif- 
icently designed armoiries and inscriptions. 



Grenoble and Vizille 221 

The chief, out-of-the-ordinary, decorations still 
to be observed are the sculptured fronts of 
thirty-eight cupboard doors which enclose the 
provincial archives. From an artistic, no less 
than a utilitarian, point of view, they are cer- 
tainly to be admired, even preferred, before the 
'' elastic " book cases of to-day. 

Much of the old Palais des Dauphins' former 
magnificent attributes in the shape of decora- 
tive details remain to charm the eye and senses 
to-day, but of the extensive range of apart- 
ments of former times only a bare three or four 
suggest by their groinings, carvings and chim- 
ney-pieces the splendour with which the elder 
sons of the kings of France were wont to sur- 
round themselves. 

A remarkably successful work of restoration 
of the fagade was accomplished within a dozen 
years on the model of the best of Renaissance 
details in other parts of the edifice, until to-day 
the whole presents a most effective ensemble. 

In Grenoble's museum is a room devoted to 
portraits of the good and great of Dauphiny. 
There are a dozen busts in marble of as many 
Dauphins, a portrait of Marie Vignon, the wife 
of Lesdiguieres, and a crayon sketch of Bayard, 
which is the earliest portrait of the '^ Cheva- 
lier ' ' extant. In the £jglise Saint Andre is the 



222 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
tomb of Bayard. The funeral momiment sur- 
mountiiig it was erected only in the seventeenth 
century. The official chapel of the Dauphins 
has a great rectangular clocher remaining to 
suggest its former proportions. This fine tower 
is surmounted by an octagonal upper story and 
is flanked at each corner with a clocheton rising 
hardily into the rarefied atmosphere. The grim 
tower braves the tempests of winter to-day as 
it has since 1230. 

Grenoble's Hotel des Trois Dauphins is an 
historic monument as replete with interest as 
many of more splendour. It was here that 
Napoleon lodged, with General Bertrand, on 
the night when he passed through the city on 
that eventful return from Elba when he sought 
to kindle the European war-flame anew. 

Grenoble's sole vestige of ancient castle or 
chateau architecture, aside from the temporary 
royal abode of the French kings and the Dau- 
phins, is a round tower — ^La Grosse Tour 
Eonde — now built into the Hotel de Ville, the 
only existing relic of a still earlier Palais des 
Dauphins which in its time stood upon the site 
of the ancient Roman remains of a structure 
built in the days of Diocletian. 

Grenoble's citadel possesses to-day only a 
square tower with machicoulis to give it the dis- 



Grrenoble and Vizille 223 

tinction of a militant spirit. It was built in 
1409, but to-day has been reduced to a mere 
barrack's accessory of not the slightest military 
strength, a '^ colombier militaire," the authori- 
ties themselves cynically call it. 

Vauban's ancient ramparts have now been 
turned into a series of those tree-planted prom- 
enades so common in France, but the militant 
aspect of Grrenoble is not allowed to be lost 
sight of, as a mere glance of the eye upward to 
the hillsides and mountain crests roundabout 
plainly indicates. 

Grenoble, with its fort-crowned hill of ''La 
Bastille," has been called the Ehrenbreitstein 
of the Isere, a river which has played a momen- 
tous part in the history of Savoy and Dauphiny, 
but which is little known or recognized by 
those who follow the main lines of French 
travel. 

Mont Eachet forms the underpinning of " La 
Bastille " and gives a foothold to an old feudal 
fortress now built around by a more modern 
work. Below is the juncture of the Isere and 
the Drac, and the great plain in the midst of 
which rests the proud old capital of the Dau- 
phins. The site is truly remarkable and the 
strategic importance of the fortress was well 
enough made use of in mediaeval times as a 



224 Castles and Cliateaus of Old Burgundy 

feudal stronghold. "Wliat its value for military- 
purposes may actually be to-day is another 
story. The walls of the fortress certainly look 
grim enough, but it is probable that even the 
puniest of Alpine mountain batteries could re- 
duce it in short order. 

Grenoble, as might be expected of a wealthy 
provincial capital, is surounded by a near-by 
battery of palatial country houses which may 
well take rank as chateaux de marque. Some 
are modern and some are remodelled from 
more ancient foundations, but all are of the 
imposing order which one associates with a 
mountain retreat. These of course are of a 
class quite distinct from the countless forts, 
fortresses, towers and donjons with which the 
whole countryside is strewn. 

Uriage, a near neighbour, is a popular resort 
in little, in fact, a ville d'eau, as the French 
aptly name such places. The Chateau d 'Uriage 
will for most folkhave vastly more sympathetic 
interest than the semi-invalid attractions of the 
spa itself. It is at present the property of the 
Saint Ferreol family, and though not strictly 
to be reckoned as a sight, since it is not open 
to the public, it still remains one of the most 
striking residential chateaux of these parts. 
It was built by the Seigneurs d'Allemon under 







Chateau d'Uriage 



G-renoble and Yizille 225 



the old regime. Its architecture is frankly of 
the nondescript order, a melange of much that 
is good and some that is bad, but all of it ef- 
fective when judged from a more or less dis- 
tant view-point. With respect to its details it 
is a livid mass of non-contemporary elements 
to which the purist would give scant considera- 
tion, but the effect, always the most desirable 
quality after all, is undeniably satisfying. 
The situation heightens this effect, no doubt, 
but what would you? The high sloped roof, 
in place of the mansards one usually sees, 
may be considered an innovation in a structure 
of its epoch. It was so built, without question, 
that it might better shed the snows of winter, 
which here come early and stay late. 

The Chateau de Vizille, in a wooded park 
bordering upon the little industrial suburb of 
Grrenoble bearing the same name, is a most im- 
posing pile, and is fairly reminiscent of its 
eighteenth century contemporaries in Touraine 
and elsewhere in mid-France. It was the place 
of meeting of the Etats Generaux of Dauphiny 
in 1788, one of the momentous preambles to the 
French Eevolution, a chapter of the great 
drama which was vigorously spoken and acted. 

It was on July 21, 1788, under the presidency 
of the Comte de Marges, that were voted the 



226 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

preliminary paragraphs of the famous ' ' Decla- 
ration des Droits de I'Homme et du Citoyen." 
The occasion is perpetuated in memory by a 
monument erected in the town to ''La Gloire 
de I'Assemblee de Vizille . . . et prepare la 
Eevolution Francaise." 

This was the first parliamentary vote against 
the sustaining of aristocratic hereditary gov- 
ernment in favour of popular representation — 
really the general signal for revolution, a year 
before the convention at Versailles. 

The massive pile, ornate but not burdensome, 
with its mansards, its towers and terraces, com- 
poses with its environment in a most agreeable 
manner. 

Known originally as the Chateau des Les- 
diguieres, for it was built originally by that 
celebrated Constable, Vice-Roi du Dauphine, 
the Chateau de Vizille was formerly the prop- 
erty of the family of Casimir Perier, that 
which gave a president to the later Republic. 

In the early part of the seventeenth century 
a German traveller, Abraham Goelnitz, 
** greatly admired " the chateau, and compared 
it to that of the Due d'Epernon at Cadillac, 
which contained seventy rooms. That of the 
Marechal Lesdiguieres had a hundred and 
twenty-five, among them (at that time) a pic- 







Chateau de Vizille 



Grenoble and Vizille ^ 

ture gallery, an arsenal with six hundred suits 
of armour, two thousand pikes and ten thou- 
sand muskets, as the inventory read. No won- 
der Eichelieu would have reduced the power 
of the local seigneurs when they could get, and 
keep together, such a store as that. 

Vizille abounds in historical memories the 
most exciting; the very fact that it was the 
home of Lesdiguieres, the terrible companion 
of the Baron des Adrets — a Dauphinese ty- 
rant, a warrior-pillager and much more that 
history vouches for — explains this. 

'^ Viendrez ou je hrulerai/' Lesdiguieres 
wrote to the recalcitrant vassals of his king 
who originally had a castle on the same site. 
And when they stepped out, leaving the edifice 
unharmed, he stepped in and threw it to the 
ground and built the less militant chateau 
which one sees to-day. This edifice as it now 
stands was practically the work of Lesdiguieres. 
The Protestant governor of Dauphiny was 
reckoned a '' sly fox " by the Due de Savoie, 
and doubtless with reason. It is a recorded 
fact of history that the governor built his cha- 
teau with the unpaid labour of the neighbouring 
peasants. This was in conformity with an old 
custom by which a governor of the Crown could 
release his subject from taxes by the payment 



228 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

of a corvee, that is, labour for the State. He 
took it to mean that as the representative of the 
state the peasants were bound to work for him. 
And so they did. The charge goes home never- 
theless that it was a case of official sinning. 

This '^ Berceau de la Liberte " is in form 
an elegant pavilion of the style current with 
Louis XIII. Originally it possessed certain 
decorative features, statues and bas reliefs, all 
more or less mutilated to-day. What is left 
gives an aspect of magnificence, but after all 
these features are of no very high artistic order. 
Within, the decoration of the apartments and 
their furnishings rise to a considerably higher 
plane. Everywhere may be seen the arms of 
the Constable, three roses and a lion, the latter 
rampant, naturally, as becomes the device of 
a warrior. 

The later career of the Chateau de Vizille has 
been most ignoble. Twice in the last century 
it suffered by fire, in 1825 and 1865, and finally 
it was rented as a store-house for a manufac- 
turing concern, later to become a boarding 
house controlled by a Societe Anglaise. Noth- 
ing good came of the last project and the enter- 
prise failed, as might have been anticipated at 
the commencement. To-day the property is on 
the market, or was until very recently. 



CHAPTER XVI 

CHAMBEEY AND THE LAC DU BOURGET 

One comes to Chambery to see the chateau 
of the Dues de Savoie, the modest villa " Les 
Charmettes," celebrated by the sojourn of Jean 
Jacques Rousseau and Madame de Warens. 
and the Fontaine des Elephants. That is all 
Chambery has for those who would worship at 
picturesque or romantic shrines, save its acces- 
sibility to all Savoy. 

To begin with the last mentioned attraction 
first, one may dispose of the Fontaine des Ele- 
phants in a word. It has absolutely no artistic 
or sentimental appeal, though the town resi- 
dents worship before it as a Buddhist does be- 
fore Buddha. The ducal splendour of the cha- 
teau and of ''La Sainte Chapelle," which to- 
gether form the mass commonly referred to as 
'' the chateau," is indeed the first of Cham- 
bery 's attractions. Restorations of various 
epochs have made of the fabric something that 
will stand the changes of the seasons for gener- 

229 



230 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

ations yet to come and still preserve its mediae- 
val characteristics. This is saying that the res- 
toration of the Chateau de Chambery has been 
intelligently conceived and well executed. 

The great portal, preceded by an ornate ter- 
race, with a statue of the Freres de Maistre, is 
the chief and most splendid architectural detail. 
A good second is the old portal of the Eglise 
Saint Dominique, which has been incorporated 
into the chateau as has been the Sainte Cha- 
pelle. Its chevet and its deep-set windows form 
the most striking externals of this conglomerate 
structure. 

One of the old towers forms another domi- 
nant note when viewed from without, but let 
no one who climbs to its upper platform for 
a view of the classic panorama of the city and 
its surroundings think that he, or she, treads 
the stones where trod lords and ladies of ro- 
mantic times, for the stairway is a poor modern 
thing bolstered up by iron rods, as unlovely as 
a fire-escape ladder on an apartment house, and 
no more romantic. 

It was in the Chateau de Chambery that was 
consummated the final ceremony by which 
Savoy was made an independent duchy in 
1416. Historians of all ranks have described 
the magnificence of the event in no sparing 




Portal of the Chateau de Chambery 



ChamlDery 



231 




Ported St. Dominique, Chancery 



232 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

terms. It was the most gorgeous spectacle ever 
played upon the stage of which this fine old 
mediaeval castle was the theatre. 

The final act of the ceremony took place be- 
fore a throng of princes, prelates and various 
seigneurs and minor vassals of all the neigh- 
bouring kingdoms and principalities. The Em- 
peror Sigismond, Amadee VIII, who was to 
be the new duke, dined alone upon a raised dais 
in the Grande Salle, and the service was made 
by ^' a richly dressed throng of seigneurs 
mounted on brilliantly caparisoned chargers." 
This is quoted from a historical chronicle, which 
however neglects to state the quality of the 
service. It is quite possible that it may not 
have been above reproach. 

Here, a couple of centuries later, another 
Victor-Amadee married the Princesse Henri- 
ette, Duchesse d 'Orleans. The bride to be had 
never met her future husband until they came 
together at a little village near-by, as she was 
journeying to the Savoyan castle for the cere- 
mony. Says the chronicle: '' When the prin- 
cess saw the pageant, at the head of which 
marched Victor-Amadee, the. fair young man of 
distinguished and martial bearing, without a 
moment's hesitation, casting to the winds all 
her previous instruction in matters of etiquette, 




Chateau de Chamhery 



Ohambery 233 

she flew down the stairs and into the street and 
finally into the arms of the duke. ' ' 

The marriage was not, however, a happy one. 
The duke became disloyal to his vows and left 
his wife to pine and moan away her days in the 
ducal chateau whilst he went off campaigning 
for other hearts and lands. He acquired Sicily, 
and became the first King of Sicily and Sar- 
dinia, and paved the way for the future great- 
ness of his house, but this was not accomplished 
by adherence to the code of marital constancy. 

The Chateau de Chambery was finally aban- 
doned definitely by the Savoyan dukes, who, 
when they became also monarchs of Sardinia, 
took up their residence at Turin. The " beaux 
jours " had passed never to return. Hence- 
forth its career was to be less brilliant, for it 
but rarely received even passing visits from its 
masters. In 1745 it was considerably damaged 
by fire ; in 1775 it was, in a way, furbished up 
and put in order for the marriage of Charles 
Emmanuel and Madame Clotilde of France, but 
again, in 1798, it was ravaged by fire. 

From 1793 to 1810 the chateau was the head- 
quarters of the officialdom of the newly formed 
Departement du Mont Blanc, and in 1860 it was 
used as the Prefecture of the Departement de la 
.Savoie. Napoleon III, journeying this way in 



234 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

1860, decided to make it an imperial residence 
and certain transformations to that end were 
undertaken, but it never came to real distinc- 
tion again, save tliat it exists as an admirable 
example of a '' monument bistorique " of the 
old regime. 

It was on the esplanade, beneath the windows 
of the chateau, that Amadee VI won the title 
of the Comte Vert, because of the preponderant 
colours of his arms and costume in a tourna- 
ment which was held here in 1348. 

The third of Chambery's classic sights, " Les 
Charmettes, " is the '' delicious habitation " 
rendered so celebrated by Rousseau. One ar- 
rives at '' Les Charmettes " by a discreet and 
shady by-path. It has been preserved quite in 
its primitive state and is devoid of any pre- 
tence whatever. Its charm is idealistic, roman- 
tic and intimate. Nothing grandiose has place 
here. It is a simple two-story, sloping tiled- 
roof habitation of the countryside. As the 
*' Confessions " puts it, " Les Charmettes '* 
was discovered thus : '' Apres avoir un peu 
cherche nous nous fixdmes au Charmettes . . . 
a la porte de CJianibery, mais retiree et soli- 
taire, comem si Von en etait a cent lieus.** 

This dwelling where Jean Jacques passed so 
many of his '* rares tons jours " of his adven- 



235 



turous life has been bought by the city, and 
will henceforth be guarded as a public monu- 




ment, a tourist shrine like the Chateau des Dues 
and La Grande Chartreuse. Here Madame de 



236 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

War ens will reign again in the effigy of a repro- 
duction of Quentin de la Tour's famous por- 
trait, possessed of that " air caressant et 
tendre " and '' sourire angelique " which so 
captured the author of the " Confessions." 
Arthur Young, that observant English agricul- 
turalist, who travelled so extensively in France, 
paid a warm tribute to Rousseau's good fairy 
when he wrote : ' ' There was something so ami- 
able in her character that in spite of her frail- 
ties her name rests among those few memories 
connected with us by ties more easily felt than 
described. ' ' 

In one of his stories Alphonse Daudet tells 
us of a bourgeois who had purchased an old 
chateau, and was driven away from it by the 
ghosts of the family which had preceded him 
as proprietors. Surely something of the same 
kind might have happened to that citizen of the 
United States who proposed to transport '' Les 
Charmettes " to Chicago. The offer was de- 
clined and that is how the city of Chambery 
came to possess it for all time. It is well that 
this took place, for there is hardly a house in 
Europe in which one would imagine that the 
ghosts of history would so persistently survive. 

Not only was '* Les Charmettes " and 
Madame de Warens connected so intimately, 



Chambery 237 

but they were also associated with another 
name less known in the world of letters. Hear 
what the ' ' Confessions ' ' has to say : 

'' He was a young man from Viaud; his 
father, named Vintzinried, was a self-styled 
captain of the Chateau de Chillon on Lac 
Leman. The son was a hair-dresser's assistant 
and was running about the world in that quality 
when he came to present himself to Madame de 
Warens, who received him well, as she did all 
travellers, and especially those from her own 
country. He was a big, dull blond, well-made 
enough, his face insipid, his intelligence the 
same, speaking like a beautiful Leander . . . 
vain, stupid, ignorant, insolent." For the rest 
one is referred to the '' Confessions." 

Within a radius of fifty kilometres of Cham- 
bery there are more than thirty historic cha- 
teaux or fortresses of the middle ages and the 
Renaissance. Many are in an admirable, if not 
perfect, state of preservation, and all offer 
something of historic and artistic interest, 
though manifestly not all can be included in a 
rush across France. This fact is patent ; that a 
picturesquely disposed and imposing castle or 
chateau adds much to the pleasing aspect of a 
landscape, and here in this land of mountain 
peaks and smiling valleys the prospect is as 



238 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

varied as one could hope to find.i Built often on 
a mountain slope — iand as often on a mountain 
peak — frequently within sight of one another, 
the dwellers therein would have been glad of 
some means of " wireless " communication be- 
tween their houses, for not always were the 
seigneurs at war with their neighbours. 

Off to the southward, towards Saint Michel 
de Maurienne, is one of the most conspicuous 
of these hill-top chateaux. Chignin is still the 
proud relic of an ancient chateau which is a 
land-mark for miles around. It has no history 
worth recounting, but is as much like the con- 
ventional Ehine castle of reality and imagina- 
tion as any to be seen away from the banks of 
that turgid stream. On a lofty eminence are 
four great towers to remind one of the more 
extensive structure to which they were once 
connected. These ruins, and another rebuilt 
tower of the old chateau of the twelfth and thir- 
teenth centuries, are now practically all devoted 
to the religious usages of the Chartreux, but in 
spite of this they present a militant aspect such 
as one usually associates with things secular. 

The round of Lac Bourget, which environs 
Chambery on the north, suggests many historic 
souvenirs of the dukes and the days when they 
held their court at the Chateau de Chambery. 




Chateau de Chignin 



Chambery 239 ^ 

Between Chambery and Aix-les-Bains, just 
beside that wide dusty road along which scorch 
the twentieth century nouveau riche, who with 
their villas and gigantic hotels have all but 
spoiled this idyllic corner of old Europe, rise 
the walls of the Chateau de Montagny, captured 
in 1814 by the allied armies marching against 
France, and which still conserves, embedded in 
its portal, a great shot, one of a broadside which 
finally battered in its door. If one would see 
war-like souvenirs still more barbarous, a cast 
of the eye off towards Montmelian and Miolans 
will awaken even more bloody ones. Their 
story is told elsewhere in these pages. 

At Bourget du Lac, a dozen kilometres out, 
are the ruins of the Chateau de Bourget, within 
sight of the ancient Lacus Castilion, and a near 
neighbour of the celebrated Abbey of Haute- 
combe. 

Comte Ame V was bom in the Chateau de 
Bourget in 1249. It had previously belonged to 
the Seigneur de la Rochette, and during the 
thirteenth century was occupied continually by 
the princes of the house of Savoy. As may be 
judged by all who view, its site was most ravish- 
ing, and though one may not even imagine 
what its architectural display may actually 
have been it is known that Ame V bestowed 



240 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

much care and wealth upon it when he came to 
man's estate. A pupil of Giotto's was brought 
from Italy to superintend the decorations, and 
evidences have been found in the ruined tower 
at the right of the present heap of ruins which 
suggest some of the decorative splendour which 
the building one day possessed. In spite of its 
fragmentary condition the ruin of the Chateau 
de Bourget is one of the most romantically dis- 
posed souvenirs of its era in Savoy, and one 
may well echo the words of a local poet who has 
praised it with all sincerity. 

" lac, te souvient-il •• . . des heaux jours du vieux castel." 

The chronicles, too, have much to say of the 
brilliant succession of seigneurs who came to 
visit the Comtes de Savoie here in their wild- 
wood retreat, " a line of counts as noble, rich 
and powerful as sovereigns of kingdoms." 

The sepulchre of the Savoyan counts in the 
old Abbey of Hautecombe must naturally form 
a part of any pilgrimage to the neighbouring 
chateau. For no reason whatever can it be neg- 
lected by the visitor to these parts, the less so 
by the chateau-worshipper just because it is a 
religious foundation. It is in fact the mauso- 
leum of the princes of the house of Savoy. 
Within its walls are buried various members 




Abbey of Hautecombe 



Chamlbery 241 

of the dynasty who would have made of it the 
Valhalla of their time. 

" H est un coin de terre, au pied d'une montagne 
Que baigne le lac du Bourget 

Hautecombe ! port calme ! royal monastere I 
Abri des Jils de Saint Bernard." 

At the extreme northerly end of the Lac du 
Bourget is the ancient Manoir de Chatillon, sit- 
ting high on an isolated and wooded hillside 
above the gently lapping waters, and in full 
view of the snow-capped mountains of the Al- 
pine chain to the eastward. 

Here was born, towards the end of the twelfth 
century, Geoffroi de Chatillon, son of Jean de 
Chatillon and Cassandra Cribelli, sister of Pope 
Urban III. In every way the edifice is an 
ideally picturesque one, as much so because of 
its site and its historical foundation. As an 
architectural glory it is a melange of many 
sorts, with scarce a definite aesthetic attribute. 
It is as an historical guide-post that it appears 
in its best light. Its chief deity, Geoffroi, be- 
came a canon and chancellor of the chapter at 
Milan ; later he entered the religious retreat of 
Hautecombe, from which Gregory IX finally 
drew him forth to make him a cardinal-bishop. 



242 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

He ultimately; succeeded to the pontifical robes 
and tiara himself as Celestin IV (1241). He 
died eighteen days later, poisoned, it is said, so 
his reign at the head of Christendom was per- 
haps the briefest on record. 

Bordeau, another ruined memory of medise- 
valism, also overlooks the Lac du Bourget from 
near-by. 

Aix-les-Bains is of course the lode-stone 
which draws the majority of travellers to this 
corner of the world. It is but a city of pleasure, 
a modern '' Spa," the outgrowth of another of 
Eoman times when they took " cures " more 
seriously. It has the reputation to-day, among 
those who are really in the whirl of things, as 
being the gayest, if not the most profligate — 
and there is some suspicion of that — watering 
place in Europe. Judging from prices alone, 
and admitting the disposition or willingness of 
those who would be gay to pay high prices with- 
out a murmur, this is probably so. 

The site of Aix-les-Bains is lovely, and its 
waters really beneficial — so the doctors say, 
and probably with truth. Its Casino is only 
second to that of Monte Carlo. 

The chief charm of Aix-les-Bains after all is, 
or ought to be, its accessibility to the historic 
masterpieces roundabout, and its delightful sit- 



Chambery 243 

nation by the shores of the '' lac bleu " whose 
praises were so loudly sung by Lamartine in 
" Raphael." 

North from Chambery and east from Aix-les- 
Bains, is a mountain region known as Les 
Bauges, a little known and less exploited region. 
It is a charming isolated corner of Savoy, 
where once roamed the gorgeous equipages of 
the Dues de Savoie, who here hunted the wild 
boar, the deer and the bears and foxes to their 
hearts* content. To-day pretty much all game 
of this nature has disappeared, save an occa- 
sional sanglier, or wild boar, which, when met 
with, usually turns tail and runs. 

Midway in this mountain land between Aix- 
les-Bains and Albertville is Le Chatelard, a tiny 
townlet on the banks of a mountain torrent, the 
Cher an. On a hill above the town, at a 
height of nearly three thousand feet above the 
sea level, are the insignificant remains of the 
chateau of Thomas de Savoie. Scant remains 
they are to be sure, endowed with a history as 
scant, since little written word is to be met with 
concerning them. 

Otherwise the chateau is a very satisfactory 
historical monument. 

After climbing a tortuous winding path one 
comes suddenly upon a great walled barrier 



244 Castles and Chateanx of Old Burgundy 

through which opens a door on which is to be 
read : 

ON EST PRIE 
DE TERMER LES 
PORTES 

(J'exige). 

The last line is delicious. Of course one 
would close the doors after the mere intimation 
that it was desired that they should be closed. 
The proprietor says that he demands it, but he 
takes no measures to see that his demands are 
carried out. What pretence ! All the same the 
pilgrimage is worth the making, but it's not an 
easy jaunt. 



CHAPTER XVII 

IIT THE SHADOW OF LA GRANDE CHARTREUSE 

One may leave Eousseau's smiling valley 
above Chamber y and journey to Grenoble via 
La Grande Chartreuse, or by the valley of the 
Isere, as fancy dictates. In either case one 
should double back and cover the other route or 
much will otherwise be missed that will be re- 
gretted. 

Grenoble is militant from heel to toe. Its 
garrison is of vast numbers, soldiers of all 
ranks and all arms are everywhere, and every 
hill round-about bristles with a fortification 
or a battery of masked guns. 

Every foot of the region is historic ground, 
and whether one crosses from Savoy to Dau- 
phiny or from Dauphiny to Savoy the border- 
land is at all times reminiscent of the historic 
past. 

The cradle of the Dauphin princes of France 
is not only a region of mountains and valleys, 
but it is a land where a numerous and warlike 

245 



246 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

nobility was able to withstand invaders and op- 
pressors to the last. Like Scotland, Dauphiny 
was never conquered ; at least it lost no meas- 
ure of its original independence by its alliances 
until it was cut up into the present-day depart- 
ments of modern France. 

Dauphiny is possessed of multiple aspects. 
It has the sun-burnt character of Provence in 
the south, with Montelimar and Grignan as its 
chief centres; it has its coteaux and falaises, 
like those of Normandy, around Crest and Die ; 
and its '' Petite HoUande " neighbouring upon 
Tour-de-Pin where the Dauphins once had a 
gem of a little rest-house which still exists to- 
day. The mountains of Dauphiny rival the 
Alps of Switzerland — the famous Barre des 
ficrins is only a shade less dominant than Mont 
Blanc itself. 

The chief singer of the praises of Dauphiny 
has ever been Lamartine. No one has pictured 
its varied a^pects better. 

" L'oeil embrasse au matin I'horizoii qu'il domine 
Et regarde, a travers les branches de noyer, 
Les eaux bleiiir au loin et la plaine ondoyer. 

On voit a mille pieds au dessous de leurs branches 
La grande plaine bleue avec ses routes blanches 
Les moissons jaunes d'or, les bois comme un point noir, 
L'Isere renvoyant le ciel comme un miroir." 




Maison des Dauphins, Tour-de-Pin 



La Grande Chartreuse 247 

The very topographical aspect of Dauphiny 
has bespoken romance and chivalry at all times. 
The mass of La Grande Chartreuse was dedi- 
cated to religious devotion, but those of other 
mountain chains, and the plains and valleys 
lying between, were strewn with castle towers 
and donjons almost to the total exclusion of 
church spires. 

Coming south from Chambery by the valley 
of the Graisivaudan, by the side of the rushing 
waters of the Isere hurrying on its way to join 
the greater Ehone at Valence, the point of view 
is manifestly one which suggests feudalism in 
all its militant glory, rather than the recogni- 
tion of the fact that it is overshadowed by the 
height of La Grande Chartreuse, whose influ- 
ences were wholly dissimilar. 

It was the valley of Graisivaudan that Louis 
XII rather impulsively called the most beauti- 
ful garden of France: " charme par la divi- 
nite de ses plantements et les tours en serpen- 
tant qu'y fait la riviere Isere." 

Stendhal, too, compared it to the finest val- 
leys of Piedmont. One may differ, but it is a 
very beautiful prospect indeed which opens out 
from Barraux or Pontcharra, midway between 
Grenoble and Chambery. 

Near Pontcharra is the Chateau Bayard, 



248 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

where was born and lived the famous " Cheva- 
lier, sans peur et sans reproche." As an his- 
toric monument of rank its position is pre- 
eminent, though not much can be said of its 
architectural pretence. Still here it is, on the 
route from Grenoble to Gap by the famous Col. 
Bayard, also celebrated in history, almost as 
much so as the famous Breche de Roland in the 
Pyrenees. 

It was through this cleft in the mountain that 
Napoleon marched on that eventful journey 
from Golfe Jouan to Paris in the attempt to 
rise again to power. It was not far from the 
crest, the pass between the two principal val- 
leys of the French Alps, that Napoleon made 
the first important additions to the few fol- 
lowers who had gathered around him on his 
doubtful journey. The troops sent out from 
Grenoble opposed his progress, whereupon he 
advanced towards them, bareheaded and alone, 
and demanded to know if they, his former fel- 
lows in arms, would kill their leader. Not one 
of them would fire, though the order was actu- 
ally given. With one common inspiration they 
went over to him en masse, with the classic cry 
of " Vive VEmpereur! " and continued their 
way towards the capital, where, just before 
Grenoble, they were also joined by the forces 
















^■»^ 



.■<^ 



w-»v. 






Chateau Bayard 



La Grande Chartreuse 249 

of Labedoyere, with their colonel at their head, 
sent out to stop them. 

On the shores of the Grand Lac de Laffrey, 
as the marvellous mountain road swings by on 
its corniche, one notes a marble tablet on which 
is carven the following words, which are quite 
worth copying down. No further explanatory 
inscription is to be seen, simply the words : 

" Soldats ! Je suis voire Empereur. Ne me reconnaissez 
vous pas ! S'il en est un parmi vous qui veuille tuer son general, 
mevoila!" (7 Mars 1815.) 

In spite of the significance of the words the 
driver of a cart going the same way as our- 
selves professed an utter ignorance of their 
meaning. Passing strange, this, but true! Is 
it for this that history is written? 

The ruins of the Chateau de Bayard sit im- 
posingly on a height commanding a wide-spread 
panorama of the valley below, and the distant 
barrier of mountain peaks on every side. The 
walls and turrets are mouldering to-day, as 
they have been for generations, but local his- 
torians and antiquarians have on more than one 
occasion written of the rooms and gardens 
where strolled and played the youthful warrior, 
and acquired the principles which afterwards 
led to so great a fame. 



250 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Of the ancient chateau of the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries, where (1476-1524) was 
born the Chevalier Bayard, but a crumbling 
portal and tower remain sufficiently well pre- 
served to suggest the dignity it once had. They 
attach themselves to two minor structures, one 
of which was probably the chapel, and the 
other, perhaps, the Salle des Gardes. Within 
the walls which enclose the latter are also the 
apartments which were occupied by the war- 
rior-knight in his youth, doubtless the same as 
that in which his mother, Helene Alleman, gave 
him birth. The guardian claims all this, and, 
since this is what you come to see, you accept 
the assertion gratefully, though history itself 
vouches for nothing so precise. 

A bridge which crosses the river Breda at 
this point has on its parapet an equestrian 
statue representing the infant Bayard. The 
'' bon chevalier " was descended from a local 
lord who bore the name of Bayart, but some 
careless chronicler changed the final consonant 
of Aymon TerraiPs title (Seigneur de Bay- 
art) , and the name of his better known progeny 
has thus gone to history. 

The family was of antique extraction ; " of a 
noble and antique chivalry," as one learns 
from the old historians of Dauphiny. " The 



La Grande Chartreuse 251 

prowess of a Terrail " lias passed into a local 
proverb. So the infant Terrail who was to 
become the future Bayard came to his glorious 
calling by good right. At the age of six or 
seven the young Terrail went to live with his 
uncle, Bishop of Grenoble, but at twelve re- 
turned to the paternal chateau, where his in- 
clinations became the '' plus belliqueuses," 
whereas, before, his infant predilections were 
of a studious kind. Henceforth he was for war, 
and he came rightly enough by his liking, for 
one of his ancestors, Philippe Terrail, died glo- 
riously at Poitiers, another at Crecy, another at 
Verneuil and another, already known as ' ' Epee 
Terrail " to the English, died at the side of 
Louis XI. 

Young Pierre was asked by his father (1487) 
what profession he would adopt, and it was 
then that he replied that the war spirit was 
bred in him and that he would never renounce 
it. His uncle, the bishop, presented him to the 
Due Charles de Savoie, who was holding court 
at the moment at Chambery, and by his mere 
riding up on his horse before the duke, he was 
immediately accepted as a page of his suite. 

Opposite Pontcharra, on the opposite bank of 
the Isere, is the comparatively^ modern Fort 
Barraux, which looks far more ideally pictur- 



252 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

esque than the historic castle of the Bayards. 
History has not been silent with regard to the 
fortifying of these mountain peaks of Dauphiny 
and Savoy. The fortress was first built on this 
site by Charles Emmanuel, Due de Savoie, 
though an opposing army was drawn up before 
him under the command of the celebrated Con- 
netable Lesdiguieres. Being reproved by his 
king, Henri IV, for his dilatoriness in allowing 
the enemy to so entrench itself whilst he and 
his men stood idly by, the Connetable saga- 
ciously and brilliantly replied, '' Your Majesty 
has need of a fortress on the Savoyan side to 
hold in check that of Montmelian, and since 
Charles Emmanuel, has been good enough to 
commence the building of one, let us wait until 
it is finished. ' ' The wait was not long, and the 
completed fortress, after a very slight struggle, 
came to the French king. 

The remarkable feudal Chateau de Roche- 
fort-en-Montagne, above Pontcharra, is a ruin 
scarcely equalled, as a ruin, by any other above 
ground to-day. It has a majestic sadness and 
appeal, crumbled and dishonoured though it 
is. 

To paint the picture one must hold the brush 
himself. Little satisfaction can be got from the 
contemplation of another's sketch of this noble 



La Grande Chartreuse 253 

ruin. Grand and imposing it is, however, 
though but a mere echo of the splendid edifices 
of the Renaissance in the Loire valley, and yet 
its firm, flat ground plan, its massive portal 
and its massive round tower are all reminiscent 
of the best of the Renaissance castle builder's 
art. The point should be recognized neverthe- 
less that it is of the mountain and not of the 
plain. This will account for many of its vaga- 
ries of detail as compared with the more famil- 
iar chateaux of the Loire. 

The surroundings are varied and beautiful, 
and the grim gaunt drabness of the proud old 
walls give at once a note of melancholy memory 
which sounds perhaps the stronger because this 
fine old feudal monument is but a shell as 
compared contrastingly with the better pre- 
served examples of its era to be seen in mid- 
France. 

The property belongs to-day to the Roche- 
fort-Lucay family, of which Henri Rochefort, 
the publicist, is best known. It is not, however, 
habitable in any sense, but it could be made so 
with a more reasonable expenditure than one 
usually puts into a great country house, so let 
us hope that its fortunes will some day come 
into their own again. 

Just below Grenoble are Sassenage and Saint 



254 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Donat, quite unknown and unworshipped. They 
deserve a better fame. Sassenage, but six kilo- 
metres from Grrenoble, is what the French call 
'' propre, riant ^' and '' aise." It is all this, 
as a round of a fortnight's excursions in differ- 
ent directions, in and out of Grenoble, proved 
to us. There is nothing else quite in its class, 
and its chateau is a wonderfully chiselled ser- 
mon in stone, as its portal and fagade demon- 
strate readily enough to the most casual ob- 
server. A most curious emblem is here to be 
noted. It is worthy of being added to those 
carved porcupines and salamanders of Louis 
XII and Frangois Premier. In this case it is 
a mythological, or traditional, figure, half 
woman and half snake, and possessed of two 
tails. It is a most unpleasant architectural 
decoration and perpetuates the mythical char- 
acter of a local legend. One is glad to know 
that it is not an emblem personal to the family 
of the present owner. 

Some kilometres to the south is the Tour 
Sans Venin, one of the ancient wonders of 
Dauphiny, though it is little more than a single 
flank of wall to-day. The natives, skeptical 
when they first heard the tale of Eoland the 
Paladin, built the edifice of which this wall 
formed a part, and built it of wonderful stone, 



La Grande Chartreuse 



255 




256 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

or earth, warranted to chase away reptiles and 
vermin. Imagination, no doubt, played its part, 
but one can readily enough accept the proper- 
ties as desirable ones for a building material 
to possess. 

Saint Donat, still further down the valley, 
has hardly a memory for one save that he re- 
members having heard of it in connection with 
the rather merry life of Diane de Poitiers. To- 
day it is nothing but a no-account little Dau- 
phinese village. It is not even a railway junc- 
tion. It has however an old mill built up out 
of an old rendezvous de chasse where the fickle 
Diane had more than one escapade. Like many 
another old ruin of Dauphiny the Chateau de 
Saint Donat is reminiscent of the local manner 
of building. It is nothing luxurious, but mass- 
ive, and, withal, a seemingly efficient stronghold 
for the time in which it was built, or would have 
been had it. ever been called upon to serve its 
purpose to the full. It seems a fatal destiny 
that a chateau should be no longer a chateau, 
for here in Dauphiny no inconsiderable number 
of mediaeval dwellings of this class have been 
turned into factories of one sort or another. 
Here in the salles and chamhres, as the apart- 
ments are still named on the spot, are machines 
and workmen spinning silk and weaving ribbons 



La Grande Chartreuse 257 

for the great Paris department stores. The 
Chambre de Diane, however, is still preserved 
as a show-place in much the same manner in 
which it was originally conceived. It is a cir- 
cular apartment, rather daringly attached to 
the main building. A sort of alcove, or addi- 
tion, is built out into the open still further, and 
one only reaches it by three steps up from the 
floor. Three secret doors separate the sleeping 
apartment itself from the connecting corridor. 
If there is anything of the sentiment of the en- 
chanting huntress Diane hanging about the 
apartment to-day one quite forgets it by reason 
of its being drowned out by the noise of the 
whirring mill-wheels below. 

The twentieth century is far from the time 
when romance dwelt in purling brooks or 
stalked through marble halls. '' Other days, 
other ways " is a trite saying which applies as 
well to chateaux as other things. To-day, in 
Dauphiny in particular, a purling brook or a 
mountain torrent is more valued for its " force 
motrice '' than for any other virtues, and a cha- 
teau that can be readily transformed into a silk- 
mill is a better business proposition than would 
be its value as a ruin. This is the practical, if 
sad, point of view. 

There are no coal mines in Dauphiny, but the 



258 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

houille blanche, as the French call water-power, 
is a product highly valued. Sentiment and 
romance are apt to be little valued in compar- 
ison. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

ASTNECY AND LAC LEMAN 

The immediate environs of the Lac du Bour- 
get, the Lac d'Annecy and the French shores of 
Lac Leman, — more popularly known to the 
world of tourism as the Lake of Greneva — offer 
a succession of picturesque sights and scenes, 
presented always with a historic accompaniment 
that few who have come within the spell of their 
charms will ever forget. 

It is not that these Savoyan lakes are more 
beautiful than any others; it is not that they 
are grander ; nor is it that they are particularly 
*' unspoiled," considering them from a certain 
point of view, for in the season they are very 
much visited by the French themselves and 
loved accordingly. The charm which makes 
them so attractive lies in the blend of the his- 
toric past with the modernity of the twentieth 
century. The melange is less offensive here 
than in most other places, and their contrasting 
of the old and the new, the historic and the ro- 

259 



260 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

mantic, with the modern ways and means of 
travel and accessibility, gives this mountain 
lakeland an unusual appeal. 

On almost every side are the modern appoint- 
ments of great hotels ; there are " good roads " 
everywhere for the automobilist, and the main 
lines of railway crossing France to Italy give 
an accessibility and comfortable manner of 
approach which is not excelled by the region of 
the Swiss and Italian lakes themselves. 

Annecy, the metropolis of these parts, has an 
old chateau that is much better conserved than 
that of Chambery so far as the presentation of 
it as a whole is concerned. It is more nearly a 
perfect unit, and less of a conglomerate restora- 
tion than the former. 

The Chateau d'Annecy was the ancient resi- 
dence of the Comtes de Genevois, but in 1401 
the seigniory passed to the house of Savoy. 
Eobert de Geneve, known to ecclesiastical his- 
tory as Pope Clement VII, the first of the Avi- 
gnon Popes, was born here in 1342. 

The military history of the Chateau d'An- 
necy is intimately bound up with that of the 
town because of the fact that as a matter of pro- 
tection the first settlement grouped itself con- 
fidingly around the walls which sheltered the 
seigneurial presence. Populace and the guar- 



Annecy and Lac Leman 261 

dians of the chateau together were thus enabled 
to throw off the troops which turned back on 
Annecy after the defeat at Conflans in 1537, but 
no resistance whatever was made to Henri IV 
and his followers, who entered without a blow 
being dealt, and ' ' found the inhabitants, agree- 
able and warm of welcome. ' ' This was perhaps 
a matter of mood; it might not have so hap- 
pened the day before or the day after, but 
their cordiality was certainly to the credit of all 
concerned from a humane point of view, what- 
ever devotees of the war-game may think. 

In 1630 Comte Louis de Sales commanded the 
chateau when the Marechal de Chatillon 
marched against it. The besieged made a stiff 
fight and only capitulated after being able to 
make such terms as practically turned defeat 
into victory. On the morrow the Comte de 
Sales escorted his troops to the Chateau de 
Conflans, '' with all the honours of war." 

After a brilliant career of centuries the an- 
cient residence of the Comtes de Genevois, and 
the Princes de Savoie-Nemours who came after, 
has become a barracks for a battalion of Chas- 
seurs Alpins. Fortunately for the sesthetic pro- 
prieties, it has lost nothing of its seigneurial 
aspect of old as have so many of its contempo- 
raries when put to a similar use. 



262 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Really, Annecy's chateau, its well lined walls, 
its ramparts and towers, and above all, its situ- 
ation, close to the water's edge, where the en- 
semble of its fabric mingles so well with artis- 
tically disposed foreground, has an appeal pos- 
sessed by but few structures of its class. 

If one would see the town and lake of Annecy 
at their best they should be viewed of a Sep- 
tember afternoon, when the oblique rays of the 
autumn sun first begin to gild the heavy square 
towers of the ancient chateau of the Dues de 
Nemours. Behind rise the roofs and spires of 
the town set off with the reddish golden leaves 
of the chestnuts of La Puya. All is a blend of 
the warm colouring of the southland with the 
sterner, more angular outlines of the north. 
The contrasting effect is to be remarked. To 
the left, regarding the town from the water's 
edge, or better yet from a boat upon the lake, 
rises the Villa de la Tour, where died Eugene 
Sue ; and farther away the Grange du Hameau 
de Chavoires, where lingered for a time Jean 
Jacques Rousseau. All around, through the 
chestnut woods, are scattered glistening villas 
and manoirs and granges, with, away off in the 
distance, the towering walls of the feudal Cha- 
teau de Saint Bernard. 

Another marvellous silhouette to be had from 



Annecy and Lac Leman 263 

the bosom of the lake is midway along the west- 
ern shore, where the ramparts of Tournette and 
the crenelated walls of the Dents du Lanfont 
and Charbonne are, after midday, lighted iip 
as with yellow fire. The brown and yellow roof 
and fagade of an old Benedictine convent, now 
become a hotel, rise above the verdure of the 
foreshore, and the whole is as tranquil as if the 
twentieth century were yet to be born. 

On the opposite shore of the lake is the Cha- 
teau de Duingt, with its white towers piercing 
the sky in quite the idyllic manner. 

The Chateau de Duingt is a pretentious coun- 
try residence belonging to the Genevois family 
which in the seventeenth century gave a bishop 
to the neighbourhood, a bishop, it is true, who 
was excommunicated and shorn of all his rights 
by the Comte de Savoie, Amadee V, but a 
bishop nevertheless. 

The environs of the Lac d 'Annecy have ever 
been a retreat for litterateurs and artist folk. 
Ernest Eenan lodged here in the hotellerie of 
the famous Abbey, where he occupied a chambre 
de prieur. Jose-Maria Heredia came here in 
company with Taine ; Ferdinand Fabre passed 
many months here in an isolated little house on 
the very shores of the lake; Albert Besnard, 
the painter, has recently built a studio here, 



264 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

and a quaint and altogether charming villa; 
Paul Chabas, too, has resorted hither recently 
for the same purpose, and indeed scores have 
found out this accessible but tranquil little 
corner of Savoy. Another Parisian, a Mon- 
sieur Noblemaire, has acquired the picturesque 
Savoyard Manoir de Thoron, built sometime 
during the seventeenth century, and lives in- 
deed the life of a noble under the old regime 
amid the very same luxuriant and agreeable 
surroundings. 

Faverges, at the lower end of the Lac d'An- 
necy, backed up by the sombre Foret de Dous- 
sard, and in plain view of the snowy top of 
Mont Blanc off to the eastward, is at once a 
ville industrielle and a reminiscent old feudal 
town. Its interest is the more entrancing be- 
cause of the contrasting elements which go to 
make up its architectural aspect and the life 
of its present day inhabitants. A mediaeval cha- 
teau elbows a modern silk factory, and the idle 
gossip of the workers as they take their little 
walks abroad on the little Place blends 
strangely enough with the amorous escapades 
of Henri IV which still live in local legend. 

On the road from Faverges to Thone, by the 
switch-back mountain road, following the valley 
of the Fier, is the Manoir de la Tour, where 



Annecy and Lac Leman 265 

on a fine mid-summer morning in 1730 Jean 
Jacques Rousseau climbed a cherry tree and 
bombarded the coquettish Mademoiselle Graf- 
feny and Mademoiselle Galley with the rich, 
ripe — not overripe — fruit. We know this be- 
cause Jean Jacques himself said so, and for 
that reason this little human note makes a pil- 
grimage hither the pleasurable occupation that 
it is. The fine old manor is still intact. But 
the cherry tree? No one knows. May be it 
was a mythical cherry tree like that of the 
George Washington legend. In spite of this the 
guardian will show visitors many cherry trees, 
and one may take his choice. 

Lac Leman is commonly thought a Swiss 
lake, as is Mont Blanc usually referred to as a 
Swiss mountain — which it isn't. A good third 
of the shore line of Lac Leman is French — 
" Leman Frangais/' it is called. 

Practically the whole southern, or French, 
shore of the Lake of Geneva — or Lake Leman, 
as we had best think of it since it is thus known 
to European geographers — is replete with a 
fascinating appeal which the Swiss shore en- 
tirely lacks. It is difficult to explain this, but 
it is a fact. 

The region literally bristles with old castle 
walls and donjons, though their histories have 



266 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

not in every instance been preserved, nor have 
they always been so momentous as to have im- 
pressed themselves vividly in the minds of the 
general reader or the conventional traveller. 
Perhaps they are all the more charming for 
that. The writer thinks they are. 

Mont Blanc dominates the entire region on 
the east, and may be considered the good genius 
of Savoy and Upper Dauphiny, as it is of 
French-speaking Switzerland and the high Al- 
pine valleys of Italy. 

The French shore of Lac Leman, the Departe- 
ment of Haute-Savoie, is cut off from Geneva 
by the neutral Pays de Gex, and from Switzer- 
land on the east by the torrent of the Merge, 
just beyond Saint Gingolph. For fifty-two kilo- 
metres stretches this French shore, or the 
^' Cote de la Savoie " as the Swiss call it, and 
its whole extent is as romantic and fair a land 
as it is possible to conceive. 

One may come from Geneva by boat; that 
indeed is the ideal way to make one's entrance 
to Haute Savoie, unless one rolls in over the 
superb roads comfortably ensconced on the soft 
cushions of a luxurious automobile, a procedure 
which is commonly thought to be unromantic, 
but which, it is the belief of the writer, is the 
only way of knowing well the highways and 



Annecy and Lac Leman 267 

byways of a beloved land, always excepting, 
of course, the ideal method of walking. Not 
many will undertake the latter, least of all the 
stranger tourist, who, perforce, is hurried on 
his way by insistent conditions over which he 
really has but little control. Walking tours 
have been made with pleasure and profit in 
Switzerland before now ; the suggestion is made 
that the thing be attempted on the '' Cote de 
la Savoie " sometime and see what happens. 

One should leave the Geneva boat at Her- 
mance, the last Swiss station on the west. Af- 
ter that, one is on French soil. Touges is a 
simple landing place, but rising high above the 
greenswarded banks are the donjon and im- 
posing gables of the Chateau de Beauregard 
belonging to the Marquis Leon Costa. It is in 
a perfect state of conservation. It was here 
that was born, in 1752, Marquis Joseph Costa, 
a celebrated historian, whose fame rests prin- 
cipally on a work entitled ^' Comment 1 'Educa- 
tion des Femmes Peut-elle Rendre les Hommes 
Meilleursf " This is considered an all-absorb- 
ing question even to-day. 

At Nernier is a charming souvenir of La- 
martine. It was here he lodged in 1815, in a 
humble thatched cottage — one of the few in 
France, one fancies, as they are seldom seen — 



268 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

at a franc a day, " la table et le convert com- 
pris." There are some artists and literary folk 
living cheaply in France to-day, but the pension 
is not nearly as hon marche as that. 

A little farther on, beyond the green hillside 
of Boisy, is the tiny Savoy an city of Yvoire, 
with a great square mass of an old chateau, now 
moss-grown and more or less crumbled with 
age. 

Near-by are Excevenex, Sciez and the mag- 
nificently environed Chateau de Coudree, sur- 
rounded by a leafy park, a veritable royal do- 
main in aspect. 

Back a few kilometres from the shore of the 
lake is Douvaine, about midway between Ge- 
neva and Thonon. Here is the ancient Chateau 
de Troches, on the very limits of the Comte de 
Genevois, to the seigneurs of which house it for- 
merly belonged. It served many times as the 
meeting place of the Princes of Savoy, and has 
been frequently cited in the historical chron- 
icles. 

In 1682 Victor Amadee II made Troches and 
Douvaine a barony in favour of Frangois 
Marie Antoine Passerat, whose family were 
originally of Lucca in Italy. The descendants 
of the same family have held the property until 
very recent times, perhaps hold it to-day. 



Annecy and Lac Leman 269 

Throughout this region of the Chablais, as 
it is known, on towards Thonon, and beyond, 
are numerous well preserved chateaux {cha- 
teaux deb out the French appropriately call 
them in distinction to the ruined chateaux which 
abound in even greater numbers), and others, 
here and there arising a crumbled wall or tower 
above the dense foliage of the hillsides round 
about. Certain of these old manors and cha- 
teaux of the Genevois, the Chablais and Fau- 
cigny have, in recent years, after centuries of 
comparative ruin, taken on new life as country 
houses and ' ' villas ' ' of commoners — as sad a 
fall for a proud chateau as to become a barracks 
or a poorhouse if the transformations have not 
been undertaken in good taste. Still others 
remain at least as undefiled memories of the 
chateaux orgueilleux of other days. A remod- 
elled, restored chateau of the middle ages may 
be sympathetic and appealing, but the work 
must be well done and all art nouveau instincts 
suppressed. 

There are other examples which have been 
allowed to tumble to actual ruin, mere heaps 
of stones without form or outline, and others, 
like Allinges, La Eochette, De la Roche and 
Faucigny, possessing only a crumbling tower 
perched upon a height which dominates the 



270 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
valley and the plain below and tell only the 
story of their former greatness by suggestion. 
Chiefly however these can be classed as nothing 
more pretentious than ruins. 

Thonon-les-Bains, midway along the extent 
of the French shore, is renowned as a *"" ville 
d'eau." In all waj^s it quite rivals many of 
the Swiss stations on the opposite shore. It sits 
high on a sheaf of rock, the first buttresses of 
the Alps, and enjoys a wide-spread view extend- 
ing to the other shore, and beyond to the Swiss 
Jura and the Bernese Oberland. 

A dainty esplanade shaded with lindens is 
the chief thoroughfare and centre of life of this 
attractive little lakeside resort. Here once 
stood an old chateau of the Dues de Savoie. 
The court frequently repaired thither because 
of the purity of the air and the altogether de- 
lightful surroundings. It was one of the later 
line of dukes who exploited the mineral springs 
which have given Thonon its latter-day renown. 

Back of Thonon rises a curiously disposed 
table-land known as the Colline des Allinges. It 
alternates bare rock with a heather-like vege- 
tation in a colouring as wonderful as any ar- 
tist's palette could conceive. The ruins of two 
fortress-chateaux crown the height of the pla- 
teau, one coming down from a period of great 



Annecy and Lac Leman 271 

antiquity, wMlst the other is of more recent 
date, with a well preserved portal and a draw- 
bridge. Within the precincts of this latter are 
still to be seen the ruins of a chapel rich in 
memories of Saint Fran§ois-de-Sales, who 
spent a considerable part of his apostleship 
here in the Chablais. To-day, the old chateau 
and its chapel are a place of pious pilgrimage, 
but with the piety left out it is the chief and 
most popular excursion for mere sight-seers 
coming out from Thonon. This mere fact does 
not, however, detract from its historic, religious 
and romantic significance, so let no one omit it 
for that reason. 

The Chateau de Ripaille, beyond Thonon 
towards Vivian, is a grander shrine by far. It 
was the retreat of a Due de Savoie who was 
finally withdrawn from his hiding place that 
he might be crowned with the papal tiara. The 
incident is historically authenticated, and the. 
very substantial remains of the old chateau 
to-day — monumental even — make it one of 
the most interesting shrines of its class in all 
France. 

The Chateau de Ripaille was originally built 
by Amadee VIII as a rendez-vous de cJiasse. 
' ' Near the Convent des Augustins he built him- 
self a chateau of seven rooms and seven towers, 



272 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

after the death of his wife, Marie de Bour- 
gogne, in 1434," say the chronicles. 

Here Amadee shut himself up with six 
fellowmen, either widowers or celibates, who 
formed his sole counsellors and society. The 
Council of Bale of 1439 sent the Cardinal 
d 'Aries and twenty-five prelates to offer the 
self-deposed monarch the papal crown. The 
attractions of the position, or the inducements 
offered, were seemingly too great to be resisted, 
and, as Felix V, he was made Pontiff in the 
Eiglise de Ripaille in the same year. 

Soon the cramped quarters of the chateau 
and all the town were filled with a splendid 
pageant of ambassadors, prelates and digni- 
taries. All were anxious to salute in person 
the new head of the Church. France, England, 
Castile, the Swiss Cantons, Austria, Bohemia, 
Savoy and Piedmont recognized the new Pope, 
but the rest of Christendom remained faithful 
to Eugene IV, Ripaille and Thonon received 
such an influx of celebrities as it had never 
known before, nor since. 

The towered and buttressed walls remain in 
evidence to-day,- but within all is hollow as a 
sepulchre. The great portal by which one 
passed from the chapel to the dwelling is mon- 
umental from every point of view. What it 




Chateau de Ripaille 



Annecy and Lac Leman 273 

lacks in arcMtectural excellence it makes up 
in its imposing proportions, and moreover pos- 
sesses an individual note which is rare in mod- 
ern works of a similar nature. 

The chief centre after Thonon, going east, 
is Eivian, with which most travellers in France 
are familiar only as a name on the label on the 
bottle of the most excellent mineral water on 
sale in the hotels and restaurants. The '' Eau 
d 'Vivian " is about the only table water uni- 
versally sold in Europe that isn't '' fizzy," and 
is accordingly popular — and expensive. 

]£vian, sitting snug under the flank of Mont 
Benant, a four thousand foot peak, its shore 
front dotted with little latteen-rigged, swallow- 
sailed boats is the '' Biarritz de Lac Leman," 
but a Biarritz framed with a luxuriant vegeta- 
tion, whereas its Basque prototype is, in this 
respect, its antithesis. 

Twenty thousand visitors come to l^vian 
'' for the waters " each year now, but in 1840, 
when the delightful Tapffer wrote his '' Voy- 
ages en Zig Zag," it was difficult for his joyous 
band of students to find the change for a hun- 
dred franc note. Aside from its fame as a 
watering-place ifivian has no little architectural 
charm. 

The waters of Evian and their medicinal 



274 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

properties were discovered by a local hermit 
of the fifteenth century who loved the daughter 
of the neighbouring Baron de la Kochette. This 
daughter, Beatrix, also loved the hermit, all in 
quite conventional fashion, as real love affairs 
go, but the obscure origin of the young man 
was no passport to the good graces of the young 
lady's noble father, who had fallen ill with the 
gout or some other malady of high living and 
was more irascible than stern parents usually 
are. 

So acute was the old man's malady that he 
caused it to be heralded afar that he would give 
his daughter in marriage to him who would 
effect a cure. This was a new phase of the 
marriage market up to that time, but the her- 
mit, Arnold, at a venture, suggested to the 
baron that he had but to bathe in the alkaline 
waters of Evian to be cured of all his real or 
imaginary ills. The miraculous, or curative, 
properties of the waters, or whatever it was, 
did their work, and the lovers were united, and 
the smiling little city of Evian on the shores of 
Lac Leman has progressed and prospered ever 
since. 

The origin of ifivian is lost in the darkness of 
time, though its nomenclature is supposed to 
have descended from the ancient patois Evoua 



Annecy and Lac Leman 275 



(water), which the Romans, who came long be- 
fore the present crop of flighty tourists, trans- 
lated as Aquianum. From this one gathers that 
Evian is historic. And it is, as much so as most 
cities who claim an antique ancestry. From the 
thirteenth century Elvian possessed its chateau- 
fort, surrounded by its sturdy bulwarks and a 
moat. Some vestiges still remain of this first 
fortification, but the wars between the Dauphin 
of the Viennois and the Comtes de Grenevois 
necessitated still stronger ones, which were 
built under Amadee V and Amadee VI. 

Within the confines of the town are three dis- 
tinctly defined structures which may be classed 
as mediaeval chateaux : the Chateau de Blonay, 
the Tour de Fonbonne, and the Manoir Grribaldi, 
belonging to the Archbishops of Vienne. This 
last has been stuccoed and whitewashed in out- 
rageous fashion, so that unless the rigours of a 
hard winter have softened its violent colour- 
ing, it is to-day as crude and unlovely as a stage 
setting seen in broad daylight. It has more- 
over been incorporated into the great palatial 
hotel which, next to the more splendid Hotel 
Splendid on the height, is the chief landmark 
seen from afar. Sic transit! 

iSvian's parish church, capped with an enor- 
mous tower, is most curious. A great Place, 



276 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

or Square, has been formed out of the ancient 
lands of the Seigneurie of Blonay, which be- 
longed to Baron Louis de Blonay, Vice-Roi de 
Sardaigne. The seigneurial residence itself has 
been transformed, basely enough, one thinks, 
into a casino and theatre, with an art nouveau 
fagade. Not often does such a debasement of 
a historic shrine take place in France to-day. 
Sometimes a fine old Gothic or Renaissance 
house will disappear altogether, and sometimes 
a chateau, a donjon or even a church may be 
turned to unlikely public uses, such as a hos- 
pital, a prison or a barracks. This is bad 
enough, but for an historic monument to be 
turned into a music hall and a gambling room 
seems the basest of desecration. That's a great 
deal against Evian, but it must stand. 

Another property once belonging to the same 
proprietor, and known as the Manoir de Blonay, 
a name continually recurring in the annals of 
the Chablais, is to be noted beyond the town, 
near the little village of Maxilly. 

Beyond £jvian is "La Tour Ronde," a name 
given to a structure on the edge of the lake. 
The nomenclature explains itself, A disman- 
tled donjon of the conventional build rises grim 
and militant, among a serried row of coquettish 
villas, chalets and hotels, but uncouth as it is, 




Evian 



Annecy and Lac Leman 277 

using the word in a liberal sense, it forms a 
contrasting note which redounds to its benefit 
as compared with the latest craze for fantastic 
building which has been incorporated into many 
of the houses which line the shores of the lake. 
Your modern tourist often cares as much for 
an armoured cement, green tiled villa with a 
plaster cat on its ridge pole as he does for a 
great square manoir of classic outline, or a 
donjon with a chemin de rond at its sky line 
and a half -lowered portcullis at its entrance. 

Meillerie, just beyond the Tour Eonde, is ever 
under the glamour cast over it by Jean Jacques 
Rousseau. A souvenir of the hero of '' La 
Nouvelle Heloise " is here, the vestiges of the 
grotto where Saint Preux sought a refuge. As 
a sight it may compare favourably with other 
grottos of its class, but that is not saying that 
it is anything remarkable. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE MOUNTAIISr BACKGROUND OF SAVOY 

*' La Savoie," say the French, is '' La Suisse 
Frangaise, ' ' and indeed it is, as anyone can see 
and appreciate. With respect to topography, 
climate and nearly all else this is true. And 
its historic souvenirs, if sometimes less roman- 
tic, are more definite and far more interesting, 
in spite of the fact that the sentimentally in- 
clined have not as yet overrun the region; it 
may with confidence be said that they have not 
even discovered it. 

The amalgamation of Savoy with France was 
fortunate for all concerned. As President 
Carnot said, when on a speech-making tour 
through the region in 1892: ^' Can any of us 
without emotion recall those memorable days 
when the Convention received the people of this 
province with the welcome : ' Generous Savoy- 
ards ! In you we cherish friends and brothers ; 
never more shall you be separated from us.' " 
Savoy was ever more French in spirit than 
Italian in spite of its variable alliances, 

278 



Mountain Background of Savoy 279 

Leaving the resorts like Aix-les-Bains, An- 
necy and Evian behind, and following the tur- 
bulent Isere to its icy cradle beneath the 
haunches of Mont Saint Bernard, one may lit- 
erally leave the well-worn travel track behind, 
the railway itself striking off Italy- wards via a 
gap in the mountain chain to the southeast, 




where it ultimately burrows through the massif 
of the chain of which Mont Cenis forms the 
most notable peak. 

Just at the confines of Dauphiny and Savoy 
the Isere sweeps majestically around the fore- 
foot of the fortress of Montmelian, which 
guards the mountain gateway to the snowbound 
upper valleys. Montmelian can be seen from a 
great distance ; from a great distance even one 
may imagine that he hears the echoes of the 



280 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

cries of the victims of the cruel Seigneurs de 
Montmelian who once lived within its walls. 
Their barbarous acts were many, and historic 
facts, not merely legendary tales, perpetuate 
them. It is the knowledge that such things once 
existed that makes the suggestion of course, but 
these are the emotions one usually likes to have 
nourished when viewing a mediaeval castle. 




Montmelian 's chateau-fort played a very im- 
portant role in the history of Savoy. It was 
one of the finest fortresses of the States of Sa- 
voy, and was the chief point of attack of Fran- 
cois Premier, who, in 1535, succeeded finally in 
taking it, but by treason from within. The 
French from the moment of their occupation 
gave it a heavy garrison, and Henri II still 
further strengthened its massive walls, as did 



Mountain Background of Savoy 281 

also Henri IV later on. He called it '' a mar- 
vellously strong place; a stronger one has 
never yet been seen," 

In Montmelian's proud fortress-cliateau, also, 
were born Amadee III and Amadee IV, Princes 
of Savoy. Once it was considered, and with 
reason apparently, the strongest fortress of 
Savoy, and was for ages the wall against which 
the Viennois Dauphins battled vainly. Treason 
opened its doors to Francois Premier and trea- 
son delivered it to Henri IV. This last giving 
over of the chateau was brought about by the 
wife of Sully, who by '' sweet insinuations " 
got into the good graces of the wife of Brandes, 
the governor, and between them planned to win 
him over. 

In 1690 it was again attacked and taken by 
the French, costing them the bagatelle of eight 
thousand men, for lives were cheap in those 
days compared to castles. It was a hollow vic- 
tory, too, for the French, for they marched out 
again after the Peace of Ryswick. 

In the early years of the eighteenth century 
the French again came into possession and im- 
mediately began the work of demolishing the 
defensive walls, leaving only the residential 
chateau, that which in its emasculated form 
exists to-day. Thus disappeared from the 



282 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

scene, said the celebrated historian, Leon Mena- 
brea, a fortress to whose annals are attached 
the names most grand and the events most im- 
portant in Savoyan history. 

The Montmayeurs, the feudal family which 
first made Montmelian its stronghold, have left 
a vivid and imperishable memory in the annals 
of Savoy. They were a warlike race to begin 
with, and bore the eagle and the motto 
Unguibus et Eostbo in their family arms. 

Legend recounts that the last of the sei- 
gneurs, having lost a case at law, invited the 
president of the court, one Fesigny, to din- 
ner. Either before, or after, he cut off the 
judge's head, enclosed it in a sack bearing a 
label which read: " Here is a new piece of 
evidence for the court to digest, ' ' and deposited 
it on the public highway circling below the 
rocky foundations of Montmelian. This epi- 
sode took place in 1465, and the ignoble seigneur 
naturally fled the country immediately. His 
reputation has ever lived after him in the re- 
gion where the historic fact, or legend, of the 
" Dernier des Montmayeurs " is still current. 

Near the rock-cradled chateau of Montme- 
lian is La Eochette; there one sees the vast 
remains of a chateau which was overthrown by 
Louis XIII. This chateau, called also the Cha- 



Mountain Background of Savoy 283 

teau des Hulls, occupies one of the most stri- 
kingly imposing sites imaginable, and only in 
a lesser degree than Montmelian presents all 
the qualities which one would naturally suppose 
to be necessary in order to make such a work 
impregnable. It was heroically defended by 
Pierre de la Chambre, but the defence availed 
nothing, and now what is left has been built up 
into — of all things — a silk-mill. Its outlines 
might well be that of a mediaeval chateau even 
now; site and silhouette each have this stamp, 
and it will take little exercise of the imagination 
to picture the smoke from its chimneys as com- 
ing from the fires which may have been lighted 
at some epoch before the invention of the steam 
engine. There is nothing, from a distant point 
of view, to suggest that the old Chateau des 
Hulls is the murky, work-a-day hive of industry 
that it is. 

Above Montmelian is Saint Pierre d 'Albigny, 
where rises the ancient and formidable chateau 
of the Sires de Miolans; In the eighteenth cen- 
tury it was a prison of state incarcerating many 
famous personages, among them the celebrated 
Marquis de Sade, the story of whose escape 
would make as thrilling a chapter as was ever 
read in a romance of the cloak and sword 
variety. Another famous, or infamous, pris- 



284 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

oner was the unfortunate Lavin, the minister 
of finance of Charles-Emmanuel III, who was 
imprisoned because of his fine, but unappre- 
ciated, talent for copying bank-notes. For 
twenty-four years Lavin languished in the dun- 
geons of Miolans; indeed it was within these 
walls that he passed the greater part of his life 
after becoming of age. For this reason Mio- 
lans may be called the Bastille of Savoy. 

Miolans is typical of the middle ages. It can 
be seen, it is said, fifty kilometres away, either 
up or down the Isere. This one can well believe. 
It can only be compared to a castled burg of 
the Khine or Meuse: it is like nothing else in 
modern France. The great moats surround it 
as of old, its drawbridge, its chemin-de-ronde, 
its cachets, dungeons and oubliettes are quite 
undespoiled, and its chapel as bright and inspir- 
ing as if its functions served to-day as in the 
time of the seigneurs of the joint house of Mio- 
lans and Montmayeur, a family one of the most 
ancient in Savoy, but which became extinct in 
1523. 

The Sardinian government in 1856 — when 
Savoy belonged still to the Crown of Sardinia 
— sold the edifice for the paltry sum of five 
thousand francs, scarcely more than the price 
of a first rate piano. The buyer preserved and 



Mountain Background of Savoy 285 

made habitable, in a way, the mediaeval fabric, 
but not without considerably lessening its 
genuine old-time flavour. This is not apparent 
from afar, and only to the expert near at hand, 
so the castle lives to-day as one of the most 
thrillingly romantic piles of its class in all the 
mountain background of Savoy. To-day the 
castle, for it is more a feudal castle than a mod- 
ern chateau after all, is still in private hands, 
but no incongruous details have been further 
incorporated and the chatelain as lovingly cares 
for it as does that of Langeais in Touraine, 
perhaps the best restored, and the best kept, 
of all the habitable mediaeval castles in the 
pleasant land of France. 

In the time of the Savoyan dukes each of 
these upper valleys was deprived of communi- 
cation with its neighbours, because of either 
the utter lack of roads, or of their abominable 
up-keep. A sort of petty state or kingdom 
grew up in many of these shut-in localities, each 
possessing its individual life, and, above all, 
ecclesiastical independence. 

The sovereigns of each had their own par- 
ticular lands and ruled with velvet glove or 
iron hand as the mood might strike them or the 
case might demand. 

Still higher up above Montmelian, which may 



286 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

properly be considered the barrier between the 
lower and the upper valleys of the Tarentaise 
and the Maurienne, are scores of these cha- 
teaux, as appealing, and with reason, as many 
more noble in outline and record elsewhere. 
At Gresy is one of these; at Bathie is a fine 
feudal ruin with a round and square tower of 
most imposing presence; Blay has another, 
with a wall surmounted by a range of tripled 
tourelles ; Feisons has yet another, and a castle 
wall or an isolated tower is ever in view which- 
ever way one turns the head. 

The roadway through Albertville and Mou- 
tiers leads into Italy over the Petit Saint Ber- 
nard ; that by the valley of the Maurienne over 
the Mont Cenis. Here, just as Lans-le-Bourg 
is reached, you may still see the signboards 
along the road reading: ^' Eoute Imperiale 
No. 16: Frontiere Sarde a 10 kilom." It would 
seem as though Lans-le-Bourg had not yet 
heard that the Empire had fallen, nor of the 
creation of the unified Italian Kingdom. 

Still penetrating toward the heart of the Sa- 
voyan Alps one soon reaches Albertville, pri- 
marily a place of war, secondly a centre for 
excursions in upper Savoy. This gives the 
modern note. For that of mediaevalism one has 
to go outside the town to Conflans, where sits 





Conflans 



Mountain Background of Savoy 287 

the old town high on a rocky promontory, with 
a picturesque citadel-fortress filled with sou- 
venirs of warlike times. 

The Chateau du Manuel flanks the old for- 
tress on one side, and the garrison barracks of 
to-day was at one time an old convent of Ber- 
nardins. This structure of itself is enough, and 
more, to attract one thither. It is built of red 
brick, with a range of curiously patterned twin 
windows. Besides these attributes the fau- 
bourg has also the Chateau Rouge, another of 
the resting places of the Savoyan dukes. 

The historic souvenirs of Conflans and its 
chateau are many and momentous. It defended 
the entrance to the Tarentaise, and was able to 
resist the terrible battering sieges of the troops 
of Frangois Premier and Henri IV, which was 
more than Miolans could do, in spite of the fact 
that it was supposedly a more efficient strong- 
hold. 

The town itself was erected into a Principal- 
ity in favour of the Archbishops of the Taren- 
taise, and in 1814, following upon the Treaty 
of Paris, which gave back to Sardinia a part of 
its estates, the administrative authorities of Sa- 
voy took up their seat here. 

All around are modem forts and batteries 
only to be arrived at by military roads climbing 



288 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

the mountain-side in perilous fashion, but they 
have nothing of sentiment or romance about 
them and so one can only; marvel that such 
things be. 

The neighbouring Fort Barraux is one of the 
marvels of modern fortresses, rebuilt out of an 
old chateau-fort. This fortress was originally 
constructed before the end of the sixteenth cen- 
tury by Charles-Emmanuel de Savoie, and 
taken over, almost without a struggle, by Les- 
diguieres, almost before the masons had fin- 
ished their work for the ducal master. 

' ' Wait, ' ' said the Marechal to his king, ' ' we 
will not be in a hurry. It were better that we 
should have a finished fortress on our hands 
than one half built. ' ' And with a supreme con- 
fidence Lesdiguieres waited six months and then 
simply walked up and ' ' took it ' ' and presented 
it to his royal master. 

At Montvallezen-sur-Seez, in the Tarentaise, 
there existed, in the seventeenth century, a sort 
of a monkish chateau, at least it was a purely 
secular dwelling, a sort of retreat for the Canon 
of the Hospice of Saint Bernard. It was built 
in 1673 by the Canon Ducloz, and though all 
but the tower has disappeared, history tells 
much of the luxury and comfort which once 
found a place here in this '' Logement du 



Mountain Background of Savoy 289 

Vicar." The tower rises five stories in height 
and contains a heavy staircase lighted on each 
landing by a single window. From this one 
judges that the tower must have been intended 
as a defence or last refuge for the dwellers in 
the chateau in case they were attacked by ban- 
dits or other evil doers. On arriving at the 
final floor, the walls are pierced with ten win- 
dows. A carven tablet reproduced herewith 
tells as much of the actual history of the tower 
as is known. 



PIOC . OPVS 

F. F. R . D . LOSS 

DVCLOT 

CUBEENATOR 

DOM US . SATI 

BERNARDI 



16 -\- 73 



CHAPTER XX 



BY THE BANKS OF THE EHONE 




The boundary 
between D a u - 
phiny and Pro- 
vence was by no 
means vague; it 
■was a well de- 
fined territorial 
limit, but in the 
old days, as with 
those of the pres- 
ent, the climatic 
and topographic limits between the two regions 
were not so readily defined. The Rhone, the 
mightiest of French rivers when measured by 
the force and, at times, the bulk of its current, 
played a momentous historic part in the devel- 
opment of all the region lying within its water- 
shed, and for that reason the cities lying mid- 
way upon its banks had much intercourse one 
with another. 

Vienne, on the left bank of this swift-flowing 

290 



By the Banks of the Rhone 291 

river, was the capital of the Counts of the Vien- 
nois, and the birthplace of the earliest of the 
'^ native " Dauphins, who afterwards trans- 
ferred their seat of power to Grenoble. For 
this reason it is obvious that the history of 
Vienne and that of the surrounding territory 
was intimately bound up with the later moun- 
tain province of Dauphiny, whose capital was 
G-ratianopolis. 

As the capital of this mountain empire 
evolved itself into Grenoble, and the power of 
the Dauphins gradually waned at Vienne, 
Comte Humbert, who was then ruler at Vienne, 
transferred his sceptre to the heir of Philippe 
de Valois who built his palace in the ancient 
mountain stronghold of the Eomans in prefer- 
ence to continuing the seat of governmental dig- 
nity and rule by the banks of the mighty Ehone. 

From this one gathers, and rightly, that Vi- 
enne is one of the most ancient cities of Dau- 
phiny, and indeed of all the Ehone valley. Its 
history has been mentioned by Csesar : 

" Accolit Alpinis opulenta Vienna calonis." 

In the fifth century it was the capital of the 
first Burgundian kingdom, and at a later period 
the of&cial residence of the native Dauphins, 
the race that came before those eldest sons of 



292 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

the Frencli kings who wielded their power from 
their palace at Grenoble, 

Vienne's architectural monuments are many 
and of all states of nobility, but of palaces, cas- 
tles and chateaux it contains only the scantiest 
of memories. 

Down by the river, at the terminus of the ugly 
wire-rope suspension bridge, the modern useful 
successor of the more sesthetic works of the 
mediaeval '' Brothers of the Bridge," is a most 
remarkable tower known as the ' ' Tour de Mau 
Conseil." It has for a legend the tale that 
Pontius Pilate threw himself from its topmost 
story. History, more explicit than the over- 
enthusiastic native, says that it was only the 
shore-end or gatehouse of a chateau which 
guarded the river crossing, and was built by 
Philippe de Valois. There is a discrepancy 
here of some centuries, so with all due respect 
to local pride one had best stick to historic fact. 

There is a Chateau de Pilate, so-called, on the 
banks of the Rhone just below Saint Vallier, 
a few leagues away, of which the traditional 
legend is also kept green. It may be only a 
story anyway, but if one is bound to have it 
repeated, it had best be applied at this latter 
point. 

This tower of Philippe de Valois as it exists 




Tower of Philippe de Valois, Vienne 



By the Banks of the Rhone 293 

to-day, also known as the " Clef de 1 'Empire," 
is thus much more explicitly named, for it was 
in a way a sort of guardian outpost which con- 
trolled the entrance and exit to and from the 
neighbouring Lyonnais, 

Vienne, being the outgrowth of a city of great 
antiquity, its Roman remains are numerous and 
splendid, from the bare outlines of its Amphi- 
theatre to its almost perfectly preserved Tem- 
ple d'Auguste. Monuments of its feudal epoch 
are not wanting either, though no splendid do- 
mestic or civic chateau exists to-day in its en- 
tirety. Instead there are scattered here and 
there about the town many fragmentary re- 
minders of the days of the first Burgundian 
kingdom, and of the later city of the counts and 
Dauphins. 

In 879 A. D. the ruler of the province. Boson, 
Comte de Vienne, Aries et Provence, by his 
ambition and energy, was proclaimed king by 
the barons and bishops assembled in the Cha- 
teau de Mantaille, belonging to the Archbishop 
of Vienne and situated at Saint Rambert, be- 
tween Vienne and Valence. 

In the Rue de I'Hopital one sees two coiffed 
towers rising high above the surrounding 
gables. They are all that remain of the semi- 
barbarian Comte Boson's palace. In the pas- 



294 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
sage entered by an antique portal, and running 
between two rows of rather squalid buildings, 
there is a slab which bears the following in- 
scription : 



LE PALAIS DE BOSON 

8ERVIT d'HOTEL DE VILLE 

DE 1551-1771. 



It is not a very convincing souvenir, but the 
sight of the great round towers, rising above 
the canyon-like alleys roundabout, at least lends 
aid to the acceptance of the assertion by one 
who does not demand more clearly defined 
proofs. 

In the Eue Boson is another edifice which 
may have something in common with the life of 
the first Burgundian court. It is a house which 
combines many non-contemporary features and 
possesses a marvellously built winding Eenais- 
sance stairway and two great towers, one a 
mere watch-tower, seemingly, the other strongly 
fortified. Frankly these towers might be acces- 
sories of some church edifice, or yet the chim- 
neys of a factory, or of an iron furnace, since, 
even considering their situation, there is noth- 
ing distinctively feudal about them. They are, 
however, of manifest ancient origin and served 



By the Banks of the Khone 295 

either military or chateau-like functions. Of 
that there is no doubt in spite of their ungain- 
liness. 

Valence is a hruyante, grandiose city, which, 
without the Rhone or the mountains, might be 
Tours or Lille so far as its local life goes, and 
this in spite of the fact that it is on the border 
line between the north and the south. 

" A Valence le Midi commence " is the classic 
phrase with which every earnest traveller in 
France is familiar, though indeed for three or 
four months of the year Valence is surrounded 
by snow-capped mountains, '' The women of 
Valence are vive et piquante " is also another 
trite saying, but the city itself has nothing but 
its historic past to recommend it in the eyes of 
the sentimental traveller of the twentieth cen- 
tury. 

The strategic position of Valence has made 
it in times past the scene of much historic action. 
With this importance in full view it is really as- 
tonishing that the city possesses so few historic 
monuments. 

Almost at the juncture of the Isere and the 
Ehone, Valence to-day bustles its days away 
with a feverish local life that, in a way, reminds 
one of a great city like Lyons, to which indeed 
it plays second fiddle. There are few strangers 



296 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

except those who have come to town from 
places lying within a strictly local radius, and 
there is a smug air of satisfaction on the face 
of every inhabitant. 

Things have changed at Valence of late years, 
for it was once one of the first cities of Dau- 
phiny where religious reform penetrated in the 
later years of the sixteenth century, and even 
in the preceding century it had already placed 
itself under the protection of Louis XI, fearing 
that some internal upheaval might seriously 
affect its local life. Valence has always played 
for safety and that is why it lacks any particu- 
larly imposing or edifying aspect to-day. 
When Napoleon was staying at the military 
school at Valence he wrote of it as a city 
'^ somhre, severe et sans grace." There is no 
cause to modify the view to-day. 

Almost the sole example of domestic archi- 
tecture at Valence worthy to be included in any 
portrait gallery of great Renaissance houses, 
is that which is somewhat vulgarly known as 
the '' Maison des Tetes." It was built in 1531 
by the art-loving Francois Premier, not for 
himself but as a recompense for some less 
wealthy noble who had served him during his 
momentous Italian journey. 

The name applied to this historic house is 



By the Banks of the Rhone 297 



most curious, but is obvious from the decora- 
tion of its fagade. Who its owner may actually 
have been has strangely enough been over- 
looked by those whose business it is to write 
such things down. Certain it is that he was 
fortunate to have a patron who would bestow 
upon him so luxurious a dwelling as it must 
once have been. 

Perhaps, to go deeper into the question, the 
edifice was one of those " discrets chateaux " 
which Frangois had a way of building up and 
down France, where he might repair unbe- 
knownst to the world or even his court. Surely, 
here, in a tortuous back street of the dull little 
city of Valence, in the sixteenth century, one 
might well consider himself sheltered from 
the few inquisitive glances which might be cast 
on his trail. The mil de hceuf, that Paris spy 
or coterie of spies, did not exist for the mon- 
arch at Valence. 

The Maison des Tetes is the more remark- 
able by reason of its modest proportions and 
the exceedingly ornate and bizarre decorations 
of its fagade. Below and above the window- 
frames is an elaborate sculptured frieze, and 
between the arceaux of the windows, even, are 
equally finely chiselled motives. 

There is a series of medallions of five philos- 



298 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

opliers and poets of antiquity, flanked on either 
side by a head of a Roman emperor and an- 
other of Louis XI. Two mutilated effigies, 
nearly life size, occupy niches on a level with 
the second story, and directly beneath the roof 
are posed four enormous heads, typifying the 
winds of the four quarters. 

This interesting faQade, no less than the 
vague history which attaches to the house it- 
self, is in a comparative state of dilapidation. 
It seems a pity that in a city so poor in artistic 
shrines it were not better preserved and cared 
for. But there it is — Valence again! As a 
matter of fact the lower floor is occupied by a 
mean sort of a wine-shop, which assuredly casts 
an unseeming slur upon the proud position that 
the edifice once held. 

Nearly opposite the Maison des Tetes is the 
house where the young Napoleon lodged in 
1785-1786. 

Just above Valence, at the confluence of the 
Isere and the Rhone, is the magnificent feudal 
ruin of Crussol, the guardian of the gateway 
leading from the south to the north. It sits at 
a great height above the swirling waters of the 
current on a peak of rock, and from the aspect 
of its projecting, fang-like gable is locally: 
known as the ** Come de Crussol." 







■^ 






By the Banks of the Rhone 299 

For years this typical feudal castle and mili- 
tary stronghold of great power belonged to 
the family of Crussol, the old Dues d'Uzes. So 
vast was it originally in extent that it contained 
a whole village within its walls, and indeed 
there was no other protection for those who 
called the duke master, as the castle had appro- 
priated to itself the entire mountain-top pla- 
teau. 

Oertainly Crussol must have been as nearly 
impregnable a fortress as any of its class ever 
built, for from its eastern flank one may drop 
down a sheer thousand feet and then fall into 
the whirlpool waters of the Ehone. This was 
sure and sudden death to any who might lose 
their footing from above, but it was also an 
unscalable bulwark against attack. 

The panorama which opens out from the 
platform of the ruined chateau is remarkable 
and extends from the Alps on the east to the 
Cevennes on the west, and from the Vivarais 
on the north to the distant blue of the Vercors 
on the south, and perhaps, at times, even to 
Mont Yentoux in Vaucluse. 



CHAPTER XXI 

IN" THE ALPS OF DAUPHINY 

In" the high Alpine valleys back of the Barre 
des iScrins is a frontier land little known even 
to the venturesome tourist by road, who with 
his modern means of travel, the automobile, 
goes everywhere. The conventional tour of 
Europe follows out certain preconceived lines, 
and if it embraces the passing of the Alps from 
France into Italy it is usually made by the 
shortest and most direct route. If the Saint 
Bernard or the Mont Cenis route seems the 
shortest and quickest, few there are who will 
spend a day longer and pass by the highway 
crossed by Hannibal, even though they would 
experience much that was delectable en route. 

Southeast from Grenoble and Vizille is 
Bourg d'Oisans, the end of a branch railway 
line, and a diminutive, though exceedingly 
popular, French Alpine station. To the trav- 
eller by road it is the gateway to the high Al- 
pine valleys of Dauphiny, whose heart is the 

300 



In the Alps of Dauphiny 301 



palpitating mountain fortress of Briangon, the 
most elevated of all French cities. 

The highroad between Bourg d'Oisans and 
BrianQon, really the only direct communication 
between the two places, was begun by Napoleon, 
that far-seeing road-builder whom future gen- 
erations of travellers in France have good rea- 
son to rise up and call blessed. The roadway 
climbs up over the Lautret Pass, leaving the 
Galibier — the highest carriage road in Europe 
except the Stelvio — to the left, finally descend- 
ing the southeastern slope and entering Brian- 
gon via Monetier-les-Bains, just opposite the 
famous Barre des Ecrins, the highest of the 
French Alps, a peak of something over thirteen 
thousand feet, the first ascent of which is cred- 
ited to Whymper as late as 1864. 

Briangon's chateau, or rather Fort du Cha- 
teau, is no chateau at all, being a mere perpet- 
uation of a name. Its history is most vivid and 
interesting nevertheless. Briangon itself is 
one vast fortress, or a nest of them. The bugle 
call and the tramp of feet are the chief sounds 
to awaken mountain echoes roundabout. It has 
rightfully been called the Gibraltar of the Alps, 
and commands the passage from France into 
Italy. 

The town sits most ravishingly placed just 



302 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

above the pebbly bed of the incipient Durance, 
which rushes down to the Mediterranean in a 
mighty torrent. Save Brian§on's barrier of 
forts and fortresses and mountain peaks round- 
about, the town is a sad, dull place indeed, 
where winter endures for quite half the year, 
and, until the last century, it was entirely cut 
off from the world, save the exit and entrance 
by the single carriage road which rises from 
Gap via Embrun and Argentiere. 

Charles le Chauve died here at Briangon in 
the edifice which stood upon the site of the 
present Fort du Chateau, and to that circum- 
stance the place owes its chief historic distinc- 
tion. 

Above the city, a dozen kilometres away only, 
rises the famous international highroad into 
Italy. On one side of the mountain the waters 
flow through the valley of the Po into the Adri- 
atic, and on the other, via the Durance and the 
Ehone, to the Mediterranean. 

« Adieu, ma soeur la Durance, 

Nous nous s^parons sur ce mont : 
Tu vas ravager la Provence, 
Moi f^conder le Piedmont." 

On the extreme height of the pass is the 
famous Napoleon obelisk, commemorating the 



In the Alps of Dauphiny 303 

passage of the First Consul in 1806, though in- 
deed the pass was one of the chief thorough- 
fares crossing the Alps for long centuries be- 
fore. In 1494 Charles VIII crossed here with 
the army with which he invaded Italy. 

There remains little of actual monumental 
aspect at Briangon which has come down from 
other days. There is still something left of 
the old chateau of the Seigneurs de Briangon, 
but not much. This was the same edifice in 
which Charles le Chauve died, and the moun- 
tain retreat of the lords of the Tarentaise. 
The general outlines of its walls are still to be 
traced, and there is always the magnificent site 
to help one build it up anew, but that is all. 

The donjon is built on a peak of triangular 
rock rising sheer from the torrent at the bottom 
of the gorge which has cut its way through the 
town from the source higher up under the Mon- 
tague de la Madeleine. 

The donjon is still there in all its solidity 
and sadness, but it takes a climb of two hundred, 
and fifty steps up an exceedingly steep stair 
to reach the platform of rock on which it sits, 
and this after one has actually arrived at the 
base. 

The retreat was practically untakable by the 
enemy, and the seigneurs conceived the idea 



304 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

of making it still more difficult of access by 
ignoring any convenient and comfortable means 
of approach. This must have been a great an- 
noyance to themselves, but those were the days 
before time was money, so what matter? The 
old Roman way through the Tarentaise ran 
close along by the base of the chateau. 

There are four distinct ruined elements to- 
day from which one may build up anew the 
silhouette of this mediaeval stronghold. Chiefly 
these elements have been crumbled by stress 
of time, but here and there a reminder more 
definite in form, a gaunt finger of stone, points 
skyward, ■ — a battery of them in fact surround 
the actual donjon. 

The bridge on which the Roman road crossed 
the Durance was fortified, but was built of 
wood brought from the neighbouring mountain 
sides. It is supposed that the present stone 
structure is the direct successor of this wooden 
bridge, though it possesses the antique look 
which may well claim a thousand years. Ay- 
mon, the Seigneur de Briangon, when occupy- 
ing the donjon on the heights, committed many 
extortions for toll on travellers passing this 
way. It was a sort of scandalous graft of the 
eleventh century which finally induced Hera- 
clius, Archbishop of the Tarentaise, to petition 



..-e' 



■i^^-*iv«»^T "*•-»/ 




Chateau de Briancon 



In the Alps of Dauphiny 305 

Humbert II, the overlord, Comte de Maurienne, 
to call his brother lord to a more reasonable 
method of procedure. This was to the Comte 
de Maurienne 's liking, for he fell upon him 
tooth and nail and drove Aymon from his castle, 
leaving it in the ruined and dismantled condi- 
tion in which it stands to-day. 




This toll of roads and bridges was, by in- 
herited right, the privilege of many local sei- 
gneurs throughout the feudality, but here the 
demand was so excessive, so much greater than 
the traffic could stand, to put it in modern par- 
lance, that the concession was suppressed in the 
same fashion as has been often brought to bear 
on latter day monopolies badly administered. 
This thing doesn't happen often, but with the 
precedent of the toll bridge at Briangon it has 



306 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy- 
been steadily growing as a commendable prac- 
tice. Incidentally the Seigneur of Briangon 
was killed in the struggle which deprived him 
of what he thought his right, but that was seem- 
ingly a small matter ; the main thing was to do 
away with the oppression, and the Lord of the 
Maurienne, being one of those who did things 
thoroughly, went at the root of the evil. It is 
to his credit that he did not continue the toll- 
gathering for his own benefit. 

The enormous flanks of wall of the Chateau 
de Briangon, which still stand, show a thickness 
in some instances of thirty feet, and the mortar 
of eight centuries still holds the blocks firmly 
together here and there. What a comparison 
between the ancient and modern manner of 
building ! 

The same strategic position which first gave 
a foothold to the seigneurial chateau was newly 
fortified in 1536, in order to resist the troops 
of Francois I. The French by chance, or skill, 
finally took the position, and occupied it for a 
quarter of a century, until the time when Savoy 
was returned to Emmanuel-Philibert by the 
victory of Saint Quentin. Again it was cap- 
tured in 1690 by Lesdiguieres, the date of the 
conquest of Savoy by Henri IV. 

The walls of the chateau which are to be re- 



In the Alps of Dauphiny 307 

marked to-day are probably of the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries; all other works are of the 
later fortifications, or of the more modern mili- 
tary structure of the present war system of 
France. 

Briangon from the plain below has the ap- 
pearance and dignity of a monumental and 
prosperous city. Near-by this aspect is lost en- 
tirely. As the French say, it is like a shako 
stuck rakishly over the ear of a grenadier. One 
may take his choice of view points, but at all 
events Briangon is marvellously imposing and 
romantic looking from a distance. Roundabout 
on every peak and monticule are forts bristling 
with guns, all pointing Italy-wards; whilst on 
the height of Mont Genevre the Italians in turn 
train their cannon on Briangon's chateau and 
the plain beyond. 

South from Briangon runs the great route 
nationale from Dauphiny and the Alps to Pro- 
vence and the Mediterranean. It is replete 
with historic and romantic souvenirs, but like 
all the rest of these more or less poverty- 
stricken mountain regions, it lacks any great 
or splendid domestic or civic monuments on its 
route. Souvenirs of mediaeval times there are, 
and many, but they were born of warlike deeds 
rather than peaceful ones. 



308 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Midway between Brian§on and Embrun is 
Mont Dauphin, another key to the Italian gate- 
way. The fortress is a conspicuous point of 
rock sitting strategically at the mouth of the 
river Guil at its junction with the Durance. 
The fortress was the work of Vauban, and its 
bastions are built of a curious pink marble 
found in the valley of the Queyras. No doubt 
but that the fortress is impregnable, or was 
when built, but it would avail little to-day 
against modern explosives. 

Up the valley of the Guil is the region known 
as the Val de Queyras, one of the " Protestant 
Valleys " of Dauphiny, where the religious 
wars under Lesdiguieres, during the reign of 
Henri IV, raged fast and furious. Chateau 
Queyras, as its name indicates, is the seat of 
a mediaeval pile which, if not stupendous with 
respect to its outlines, is at least more than sat- 
isfying when viewed from afar. It is an an- 
cient feudal castle and befits its name, in looks 
at least, and was once the seat of the seigneurs 
of Chateau- Vieille Ville. Like the fort of Mont 
Dauphin it seemingly was built to guard the 
passage to the frontier by the Col Lacroix and 
the Col de Traversette. 

Here as early as 1480 Louis II of Dauphiny 
cut a tunnel below the Col to make the road 










to 

to 
-Si 



In the Alps of Dauphiny 309 

between the French valleys and the rich plains 
of the Po the easier of passage. 

South of Chateau Queyras is Saint Veran, 
the highest collection of human habitations in 
France, and one of the most elevated in Europe. 
It is commonly called the highest commune in 
Europe where the peasants eat white bread. 
Approximately its elevation is seven thousand 
feet, still some thousands below Leadville, one 
recalls. Because of its altitude also, it has been 
called the most pious village in France. This 
may or may not be so, but at any rate the place 
has ever been on the verge of changing its re- 
ligion from Protestant to Catholic and from 
Catholic to Protestant. What is in the rarefied 
atmosphere, one wonders, to induce such fickle- 
ness in matters spiritual ! 

Embrun, of all the towns of this part of Dau- 
phiny, is the most illustrious and famous. This 
is perhaps as much from its association with 
Louis XI as for any other reason, for it is reck- 
oned one of the dullest towns in France. 

The general aspect of Embrun is most singu- 
lar as it snuggles intimately around the drab 
walls of an old donjon, the sole relic of its an- 
cient feudal glory. The roof and gables of the 
houses of the town rise abruptly from the low 
levels to the height on which sits the donjon 



310 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

and the shrine dedicated to the divinity of 
Louis XI, '^ Our Dear Lady of Embrun," as 
he called her. 

To know more of what passed in the mind 
of Louis XI with regard to Embrun and its 
divinity one should re-turn the pages of ' ^ Quen- 
tin Durward. ' ' The monarch indeed resided so 
long in Dauphiny, at one place or another, that 
many of the most affecting scenes of his life 
were enacted here. 

A Eoman city was here in ancient times, and 
from this grew up a great strategic military 
base. Not a morsel of the debris of the Eoman 
town remains, but the cathedral still preserves 
the best of Roman principles of building in the 
stones of its pillars and vaulting. 

The donjon of the old chateau, the Tour 
Brune, as it is called, is not far from the cathe- 
dral, within the confines of the military bar- 
racks. It is, therefore, not accessible to the 
general public, unless by chance one makes the 
acquaintance of some genial Alpin-Chasseur 
who can be induced to do the honours — of 
course with permission of his superior, which 
on this particular occasion was, for us, not easy 
to get. The thing was finally '' arranged." 
Military property in France is not for the vul- 



In the Alps of Dauphiny 311 

gar eye, leastwise not in the vicinity of a fron- 
tier boundary. 

The Tour Brune is accredited as the most 
ancient military edifice in Dauphiny. Gotran, 
Eoi de Bourgogne, built it and ravished the 
valleys roundabout, using it as a base from 
which to make his pillaging sorties and then as 
a retreat in case he was hard pressed. This 
was according to the ethics of guerilla warfare 
at that time, and probably is to-day. 

As a mere habitation, the Tour Brune could 
hardly have been very comfortable. It cer- 
tainly never partook of any luxurious appoint- 
ments or accessories, judging from its build 
alone. 

The metropolis of the upper valley of the 
Durance is Gap, whose chief romantic memory, 
since indeed it has no worthy architectural 
monuments to-day, is recalled by the magnifi- 
cent marble statue of the Connetable de Les- 
diguieres on the mausoleum of this Dauphi- 
nese hero, now installed in the Prefecture, hav- 
ing been brought thither from the warrior's 
natal chateau in the neighbourhood. It shows 
the protestant defender of the rights of Henri 
rV in Dauphiny clad in the full regalia of his 
fighting armour. It is worthy of record to note 



312 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

that from being a protestant Governor of Dau- 
phiny, Lesdiguieres changed faith as did his 
royal master and became a Catholic, acquiring 
at the same time the title of Connetable de 
France as a mark of favour for his devotion 
to the tenets of his sovereign. 

There is another Chateau de Lesdiguieres, 
which lies out on the road running from Gre- 
noble to Gap, via Corps and Vizille, and is noth- 
ing at all grand or monumental in aspect. For 
a fact, the chateau at Vizille was his preferred 
domicile, and the present shapeless, ruined 
mass, though built by the Connetable, was in- 
tended merely to be a mausoleum rather than a 
dwelling. He was actually buried here, his 
body having been brought hither from Italy, 
but the Revolution threw his ashes to the winds 
and his funeral monument was removed to Gap. 



CHAPTER XXII 

IN LOWER DAUPHINY 

There is not a village or a town in Dau- 
phiny, be it ever so humble, but which guards 
some vestige or tradition of some feudal cha- 
teau or fortress of the neighbourhood. Nor are 
ocular evidences wanting which even he who 
runs may read. This is far from stating that 
the region is strewn with noble and luxurious 
monuments as are Touraine or Anjou, but nev- 
ertheless he, or she, who knows how to trans- 
late the story of the stones may make up his- 
tory to any extent he likes, and yet never finish 
the volume. And much of the tale will be as 
vivid and thrilling as that of the western and 
southern provinces, which are usually given the 
palm for romance. 

On almost any site around one's horizon a 
seigneur might have built himself a chateau, 
an all but impregnable stronghold where he 
might sustain successfully the powers vested 
in him as a vassal of the Dauphin. This was 

313 



314 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

the usual procedure, and if many of these clas- 
sic strongholds have disappeared, there are 
enough remaining to suggest the frequency and 
solidity of mediaeval building in these parts, a 
species of castle building which here in the 
mountains differed not a little from that of the 
lowlands. It is just this view-point that makes 
the study of the chateaux of Dauphiny the more 
interesting. Even the imperfectly preserved 
ruins which crown many a peak and hill-top 
are suggestive of this unique and effective 
manner of castle building, and though many 
have fallen from sheer decay in later years, it 
is chiefly because they were undermined or 
overthrown in some great or petty quarrel, and 
not because their design was not well thought 
out nor their workmanship thorough. The 
picks of Louis XI caused more actual depre- 
dation than has the stress of time. Often but 
a local legend remains to tell the tale. Cham- 
baraud, Mantailles, and Beaufort have disap- 
peared, and Moras, Thodure and Vireville, all of 
them reminiscent of the prowess of the feudal 
barons, are in truth but dim reminiscences of 
their once proud estate. 

Between Grenoble and Vienne is the Chateau 
de Bressieux, most picturesque, the first great 
requirement of a castle. It dates, in part, from 



In Lower Dauphiny 315 

the twelfth century. That is its second qual- 
ification. Antiquity conies after picturesque- 
ness in its appeal to even the traveller of con- 
ventional mould. 

The Barons of Bressieux were by the right 
of their title members of the Parliament of 
Dauphiny. The situation of their chateau as- 
sured them the full and free exercise of their 
power, right or wrong, and, like all the Dauphi- 
nese seigneurs, they were practically rulers of 
a lilliputian empire. 

It seems that the celebrated Mandrin, a brig- 
and so dignified that he was ranked as a '^ gen- 
tilhomme/* married into the family of Bres- 
sieux. History has apparently been unjust to 
Mandrin, '' the escroc who possessed the man- 
ners of a dandy," but at any rate there be those 
in Dauphiny to-day who revere his memory be- 
fore that of Bayard. 

Saint Marcellin, in the lower valley of the 
Isere, is Italian in its general aspect and lay- 
out. Its house walls, its roof-tops and its ar- 
caded streets are what most folk will at once 
call Italian. Be this as it may, it was originally 
the stronghold of the native Dauphins and the 
place in their royaume where they lived the 
most at ease and ate and drank the best. This 
is not conjecture or a far-away twentieth cen- 



316 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

tury estimate, but a quotation from recorded 
history. The only thing one recalls of Saint 
Marcellin in the eating line to-day is an exceed- 
ingly pungent variety of goat's milk cheese. It 
is not for that that most of us make of the 
quaint little Dauphinese city a place of pilgrim- 
age. 

Saint Marcellin was the seat of the ancient 
Dauphinese Parliament, but since it was three 
times destroyed by fire, it actually possesses 
but few of its old-time monumental records in 
stone. 

Beauvoir, scarce a kilometre away from 
Saint Marcellin, was the site of an incompara- 
ble chateau-fort which, it is sad to state, the 
enthusiasm of Louis XI for pulling things down 
did not leave unspoiled. To-day the chateau^ 
is a reminiscence only, but the situation, at the 
juncture of the Iseret, the Isere and the Cuman, 
tells the possibilities of its storied past in the 
eye's rapid review. There is little doubt that 
mere attack could have had but small effect on 
its sturdy walls, and that its having been des- 
troyed or injured in any way must have been 
the result of weakness or lack of courage on the 
part of those who held it from within. Only 
two definite architectural details of this great 
fortress remain as they were in those warlike 




Chateau de Beauvoir 



In Lower Dauphiny 317 

times, the tower of the chapel and a flank of 
wall containing a series of ogival windows. 

Still in the Vallee Saint Marcellinoise, as this 
junction of the three rivers is known, one sees 
the ignoble pile which marks the site of the 
former chateau of the Seigneur de Flandaines, 
one of the allies of the Dauphins, descended 
from one of the proudest families of the region. 

The Seigneur de Flandaines would build 
himself a stronghold so sturdy that no one 
might take it from him, nor ho one drive him 
out; primarily this was the formula upon 
which all castles were built. This was the very 
sentiment that the seigneur expressed to Louis 
XI at the time when the latter was but a Prince 
of Dauphiny : 

"Lou vassa defe, valan mais que lousignous in buro." 

It was only another way of saying (in the 
local patois) that a vassal clothed in armour 
was worth considerably more than one who 
dressed only in velvet. 

The Dauphin took this to mean much, but he 
had a mighty envy for the Seigneur de Flan- 
daines, and sought forthwith the ways and 
means by which to turn him out of his fortress 
abode. 



318 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

The Dauphin invited the seigneur to a court 
ball and plied him and his retainers with food 
and drink, not only to excess, but to the point 
of insensibility. After this the troops of the 
Dauphin marched on Flandaines, took it with- 
out the least resistance, turned it over to the 
crowbars of the house-breakers, and went back 
and told their prince that their work was fin- 
ished. 

In the Chateau de Rochechinard, near Flan- 
daines, the Dame de Beaujeau, emulator of the 
policy of Louis XI, martyred the poor Zizim, 
son of Mohamet II and brother of Bajazet. 
The history of the affair entire is not to be 
recounted here, but the Turk was exiled in 
France and chose this " pays de Franguistan,'* 
of which he had read, as the preferred place 
of his future abode. 

Louis XI arranged with one of his Dauphin- 
ese familiars to take the infidel into his chateau. 
The alien was at first enchanted with his new 
life and played the zither and sang songs to the 
fair ladies of Dauphiny all the long day with 
all the gallantry of a noble of France. He went 
further: he would have married with one of 
the most gracious he had met: *' It was a thing 
a thousand times more to be sought for than 
the control of the Ottoman Empire," he said. 



In Lower Dauphiny 319 

For the moment it was the one thing that the 
Turk desired in life. Proof goes further and 
states that for the purpose he became converted 
to Christianity. 

And the rest? The fair lady of Dauphiny 
did not marry the Turk ; so he was sent a hun- 
dred leagues away in further exile and the 
daughter of the Beranger-Sasseange married 
and forgot — in fact she married three times 
before she eradicated the complete memory of 
the affair. 

To-day the walls of Eochechinard are half 
buried in an undergrowth of vine and shrubs 
and are nothing more than a sad reminder of 
the history which has gone before. 

Three leagues from Saint Marcellin and 
Beauvoir is Saint Antoine, a sixteenth century 
townlet of fifteen hundred souls which has en- 
dured much, as it has always existed unto this 
day. It possesses one of the most remarkable 
and astonishing flamboyant- Gothic churches in 
all Christendom. 

During the middle ages Saint Antoine was 
a place of pilgrimage for Popes and princes, 
and the Dauphins, by reason of their intimate 
associations with the distinguished visitors to 
their country, gained both riches and power 
from the circumstance. 



320 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

When DaupMny came to be united to the 
Crown of France the tradition of Saint Antoine 
and its life-giving wine continued, and neither 
FrauQois Premier nor Louis XI neglected to 
make the journey thither. In the case of Fran- 
cois Premier there may have been another 
good, or at least sufficient, reason, for Saint 
Vallier and Diane de Poitiers were but a few 
hours away. But that's another point of view, 
a by-path which need not be followed here, since 
it would lead us too far astray. 

Following still the valley of the Isere, one 
comes to the Chateau de la Sone, at one time one, 
of the strongest fortifications of the lower val- 
ley. It was the key to the Eoyonnais, and a 
subterranean passage led from its platform 
underneath the bed of the Isere itself to a cha- 
teau of the Dauphins on the opposite bank. 

With the establishment of a silk-mill here in 
the chateau in 1771 all romance fled, and there 
being no more need for a subterranean exit, the 
passage-way was allowed to fill up. To-day 
one takes the assertion on faith ; there is noth- 
ing to prove it one way or another. 

It was here within these walls that Vaucan- 
son (1709-1782), the " sorcier-mecanicien/' in- 
vented the chain without end, which revolution- 
ized the silk-spinning industry. 



In Lower Dauphiny 321 

The aspect of the chateau to-day, declassed 
though it is, is most picturesque. It is the very 
ideal of a riverside castle, for it bears the proud 
profile of a fortress of no mean pretensions 
even now, far more than it does that of a lux- 
urious dwelling or a banal factory. It is one 
of those structures one loves to know inti- 
mately, and not ignore just because it has be- 
come a commoner among the noble chateaux of 
history. 

Two very curious twin towns are Romans 
and Bourg-de-Peage, separated by the rapidly 
flowing waters of the Isere. If such a group- 
ment of old houses and rooftops were in Swit- 
zerland or Germany, and were presided over 
by some burgrave or seneschal, all the world 
of tourists would rave over their atmosphere 
of medisevalism. Being in France, and oif the 
main lines of travel, they are largely ignored, 
even by the French themselves. It is to be re- 
marked that their history and romance have 
been such that the souvenirs and monuments 
which still exist in these curious old towns are 
most appealing. In that they are now seeking 
to attract visitors, a better fate is perhaps in 
store for Romans and Bourg-de-Peage than has 
been their portion during the last decade of 
popular touring. 



322 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

Chateaux of a minor sort there are galore at 
Eomans. Noble and opulent hotels privees in 
almost every street reflect the glories of the 
days of the Dauphins, still but little dimmed. 
Here and there an elaborately sculptured 
faQade without, or a courtyard within, bespeaks 
a lineal dignity that of later years has some- 
what paled before the exigencies of modern life. 

Eomans of late years has become a ville cotn- 
mercante and has broken the bounds of its old 
ramparts and flowed over into new quarters 
and suburbs which have little enough the char- 
acter of the old town. This is a feature to be 
remarked of most French towns which are not 
actually somnolent, though true enough it is 
that in population they may have gained very 
little on the centuries gone by. The demand 
is for new living conditions, as well as those 
of trade, and so perforce a certain part of the 
population has to go outside to live in comfort. 

It was from the castle of Hazard at Eomans, 
now a poor undignified ruin, that the last of the 
native Dauphins signed his abdication in fa- 
vour of Philippe de Valois, who acquired the 
province for the French Crown. The event was 
induced by the loss of his infant son, who, by 
some mysterious agent, fell into the swift-flow- 
ing Isere at the base of the castle walls. Over- 



In Lower Dauphiny 323 

whelmed with grief, the father would no longer 
hold the reins of state, and turned his patri- 
mony over to the French king with content and 
satisfaction, stipulating only that the French 
heir to the throne should be known as the Dau- 
phin henceforth, a state of affairs which ob- 
tained until the reign of Louis Philippe. 

South from Romans lies Die, which in spite 
of its great antiquity has conserved little of 
its ancient feudal memories. There are some 
ancient walls with a supporting tower here and 
there, but this is all that remains to suggest 
the power that once radiated from the Dea 
Vocontiorum of the ancients. 

From Die down towards the Rhone, through 
the valley of the Drome, is however a pathway 
still strewn with many reminders of the feudal- 
ity. Where the valley of Quint enters that of 
the Drome, are Pontaix and Sainte Croix, each 
of them possessed of a fine old ruin of a chateau 
on a hill overlooking the town and the river-bed 
below. 

Outside the stage setting of an opera no one 
ever saw quite so romantically disposed a land- 
scape as here. The hills and vales bordering 
upon the Rhine actually grow pale before this 
little stretch of a dozen kilometres along the 
banks of the Drome. 



324 Castles and Chateaux of Old Burgundy 

The village of Sainte Croix, and its chateau, 
is the more notable of the two mentioned, and 
played an important role in the military his- 
tory of the Diois. First of all the Eomans laid 
the foundations of the fortress one sees on the 
height above the crooked streets of the town. 
This was originally a work intended to protect 
their communications from their capital city 
at Vienne, on the banks of the Ehone, with 
Milan, beyond the Alpine frontier. 

Formerly, it was a stronghold of the Em- 
peror of the Occident, and in 1215 the Emperor 
Frederick II gave it to the Bishop of Saint 
Paul-Trois-Chateaux, who, by the end of the 
century, had transferred it to the house of Poi- 
tiers. Catholics and Protestants occupied it 
turn by turn during the religious wars, when, 
after the taking of La Rochelle, Richelieu razed 
it, as he did so many another feudal monument 
up and down the length and breadth of France. 

A great modern — comparatively modern — 
pile situated at the entrance of the village, has 
nothing in common with the old fortress on the 
height, and, though to-day it well presents the 
suggestion of a fortified mediaeval manor, it is 
in reality nothing but a walled farm, a trans- 
formation from an old Antonian convent sup- 
pressed at the Revolution. 



Index 



Adrets, Baron des, 227 

Aguesseau, Chancelier d', 
42 

Aix-les-Bains, 239, 242-243, 
279 

Albertville, 243, 286 

Allemon, Seigneurs d', 224 

Allinges, 269 

Amhoise, Jacques d', 161 

Ancy-le-Franc, 16, 93-99 

Andelot Family, 87-88 

Angely, Regnault de Saint- 
Jean d', 34 

Anjou, Rene d', 118 

Annecy, 260-262, 279 

Anse, 180 

Apremont, iii 

Arbaud, Charles, 57 

Argentiere, 302 

Aries, Cardinal d', 272 

Arnay-le-Duc, 5, 57, 6061 

Autun, 58, 70, 171 

Auxerre, 5, 19, 20, 29-34, 

35, 37, 38, 104 
Auxerre, Comtes d', 30, 33, 

35 
Auxerre, Geoffroy, Bishop 

of, .32 
Auxois, The, 51 
Auxonne, 186, 187-189 
Avallon, 20, 36-37, 43, 50 
Avignon, 108 



Bage-le-Chatel, 177 

Bage, Seigneurs de, 177, 

179, 199, 210 
Bar, Due de, 118 



Bar-sur-Seine, 80-81 
Barraux, Fort, 247, 251-252, 

288 
Bartholdi, 194, 198 
Bathie, 286 
Baviere, Family, 105, 126, 

127 
Bayard, Chateau de, 247- 

252 
Bayard, Chevalier, 221-222, 

247-251, 31 5 
Bazoche and its Chateau, 

46-48 
Beaufort, 314 
Beaujeau, Anne de, 147, 

Beaujeau, Sire de, 179, 180, 

201 
Beaujolais, The, 170, 181 
Beaune, 9, 13, 108, 109, 124, 

131, 133, 139-145, 178 
Beaune, Claude de la, 168 
Beauregard, Chateau de, 

267 
Beauvoir, 316, 319 
Bedford, Duke of, 64, 127, 

130 
Belfort, 194, 195, 197-198 
Belleville - sur - Saone, 179- 

180 
Belley, 215, 216-217 
Bcnoit XIII, 108 
Berry, Duchesse de, 72 
Bertin, 8 

Bertrand, General, 222 
Besangon, 17, 185, 186, 187, 

190, 191-194, 208 
Besnard, Albert, 263 



325 



326 



Index 



Biron, Marechal de, 141 

Blamont, 196 

Blay, 286 

Blonay, Baron de, 276 

Blonay, Chateau de, 275 

Blonay, Manoir de, 276 

Bordeau, 242 

Boulogne, 2>7 

Bourbilly and its Chateau, 

52, 53, 54-56, 59 
Bourbon, House of, 30, 161, 

179, 201, 211 
Bourbonnais, The, 2, 12 
Bourg-de-Peage, 321 
Bourg d'Oisans, 300-301 
Bourg-en-Bresse, 85, 177, 

206, 209-211, 212, 213 
Bourges, 27 
Bourget du Lac and its 

Chateau, 239-240 
Bourgogne, Canal de, 109 
Bourguignons, 81 
Bourrienne, 34 
Boyvin, 191 
Boz, 202 
Branqion, Chateau de, 162- 

163 
Brandes, 281 
Bresse, 2, 14, 177, 199-201, 

205-214 
Bressieux, Chateau de, 314- 

Briangon, Seigneurs de, 
303-306 

Brienne-le-Chateau, 80, 189 

Brillat-Savarin, 201 

Brouhee, 124 

Buffon, 4, 52, 62-66 

Bugey, 2, 14, 199, 201 

Burgundy, House of, 30, 27, 
44, 57, 64, 75, 79, 85, 100, 
102, 105, 108, 1 13-130, 

133-134, 144, 14s, 147, 
164, 272, 311 
Bussy-Rabutin, Chateau de, 

68-74 
Bussy-Rabutin Family, 55, 
69-74 



Calixtus H, 98, 159 
Capet, Hughes, 26, 115 
Carnot, Lasare, 4, 146-147, 

278 
Carpentras, 173 
Cavaillon, 173 
Celestin IV, 242 
Cerceau, Androuet du, 95- 

96, 181 
Chabas, Paul, 264 
Chablais, The, 269, 271, 276 
Chalon-sur-Saone, 5, 151, 

170, 171-173, 174, 175, 177 
Chambaraud, 314 
Chambertin, 133, 135, 137 
Chambery, 229-239, 243, 

247, 251, 260 
Chambord, 95, 96 
Chambre, Pierre de la, 283 
Chambrette, 124 
Champagne, Counts of, 19, 

100 
Champdivers, 208 
Champdivers, Odette de, 

208 
Chagny, 151- 152 
Chanceaux, 109 
Chantel, Mme. de (St. 

Jeanne de), 54, 55, 71 
Chantilly, 154 
Charbonne, 262 
Charles I (Le Chauve), 

175, 206, 213, 302, 303 
Charles VI, 208 
Charles VII , 28, 30 
Charles VIII, 188, 220, 303 
Charles IX, 93, 171 
Charles X, 57 
Charles V (Emperor), 116, 

192, 193 
Charolles, 153, 155, 171 
Chastellux, Chateau de, 16, 

37-43, 44 
Chastillon (see Chatillon) 
Chateau des Dues (see 

Chastillon) 
Chateauneuf, 206-207 
Chateau-Vieille Ville, Set- 



Index 



327 



gneurs de, 308 
Chatel-Censoir, 35 
Chatelet, 196 
Chatelet Family, 52 
Chatillon-sur-Seine, 35, 62, 

66, 75-82, 86 
Chatillon-les-Dombes, 215 
Chdtillon, House of, 241- 

242, 261 
Chaumont-Ia-Guiche, 154 
Chazeu, 70 
Chenove, I33-I34 
Cheran, The, 243 
Chignin, Chateau de, 238 
Chinon, Chateau, 35 
Clamecy, 35 
Clement VII, 179, 260 
Clemont, 196 
Clermont Family, 93, 96, 

97-98 
Clos de la Perriere, 134 
Clos du Chapitre, 134 
Clos Vougeot, 9, 135-137, 

142 
Cluny and Its Abbey, 13-14, 

157-162 
Coeur, Jacques, 27 
Cognac, 116 
Colbert, 70, 174 
Coligny Family, 87-88, 90, 

92, 93, 216 
Colin, Sieiir, 6 
Conde, Prince de, 66, 87, 

190 
Conflans, 261, 286-288 
Corcheval, 153 
Cormatin, Chateau de, 162 
Corps, 312 
Corton, 144- 14s 
Cosse-Brissac, Marechal, 61 
Costa, Marquis Leon and 

Joseph, 267 
Coucy, 12 

Coudree, Chateau de, 268 
Coulanges-sur-Yonne, 35 
Courcelles-les-Ranges, Cha- 
teau de, 79 
Courtney Family, 87-88, 90 



Cousin, Jean, 34 
Coy pel, 72 
Crais-Billon, 135 
Crest, 246 
Crussol, 298-299 
Cuiseaux, 212 
Cure, The, 38 
Cussy-la-Colonne, 56-57 

Dampierre, 95 
Daiidet, Alphonse, 236 
Dauphiny, 2, 14, 15, 218- 

228, 245-247, 252, 256, 257, 

266, 279, 290-324 
De La Roche, 269 
Dents du Lanfont, 263 
Dheune, The, 109 
Die, 246, 323-324 
Dijon, 13, 14, 17, 24, 52, 66, 

67, 68, 70, 85, 99, 103, 

104, no, III, 112, 113- 

130, 133, 135, 171, 185, 

186, 190 
Dole, 190-191, 209 
Dombes, Principality of, 2, 

14, 178, 180, 182, 183-184, 

199, 201, 202, 215 
Donzy, 173 

Doussard, Foret de, 264 
Douvaine, 268 
Duclos, Canon, 288 
Duesme, 82-83 
Dufayal, 60 
Duguesclin, 71 
Duingt, Chateau de, 263 
Dunois, 71 
Duretal, 212 

Edzvard III, 33 

Embrun, 302, 308, 309-311 

Eon, Chevalier d', 34 

Epailly, Jacques d', 36 

fipinac, 148-151 

Epiry, Baron d' , 69 

fipoisses, 20, 52-55 

Eugene IV, 272 

Evelyn, 6 

fivian, 271, 273-276, 279 

Excevenex, 268 



328 



Index 



Fabre, Ferdinand, 263 

Fagon, 138 

Falais, 12 

Farcins, 181 

Fargis Family, De, 147 

Faucigny, 269 

Faverges, 264 

Fecamp, Abbey de, 142 

Feisons, 286 

Felix V , 272 

Fernay, 204-205 

Fesigny, 282 

Fixin, 134-135 

Flandaines, Seigneur de, 

317-318 
Franche, Comte, 2, 17, 116, 

185-197, 208 
Frangois I, 116, 124, 154, 

171, 183, 213, 216, 220, 

254, 280, 281, 287, 296-297, 

306, 320 
Froissart, 80 
Furstemburg, Comte de, 

213-214 

G alias, 189 

Galley, Mile., 265 

Gap, 214, 248, 302, 311-312 

Gatinais, The, 20 

Gellan, Nicolas de, 76 

Gelasse II, 159 

Geneva, 102, 203-204, 215, 

259, 265-268 
Genevois, Comfes de, 260- 

261, 263, 268, 275 
Genlis, 186, 187 
Gevrey, 135 
Gex, 203-204, 266 
Givry, 173 
Godran, Odinet, 129 
Goelnits, Abraham, 226 
Gondi, Cardinal de, 25 
Graifeny, Mile., 265 
Grange du Hameau de 

Chavoires, 262 
Granville Family, 193 
Gregory VIII, 98 
Gregory IX, 241 



Grenoble, 219-224, 225, 244, 
247, 248, 253, 254, 291, 
292, 300, 314 

Gresy, 286 

Greuze, 4, 176 

Gribaldi, Manoir, 275 

Grignan, 246 

Grignan, Comtesse de, 55, 

Guiche Family, De, 154 
Guillebaud, 220 
Guitant, Chateau de, 55, 59 
Gunsbourg, M., 162 

Hautecombe, Abbey of, 

239, 240 
Hemery, Porticelli d' , 88-89 
Henri II, 69, yji, 94, 280 
Henri IV, 52, 60, 61, 76, 77, 

88, 141, 149, 165, 175, 181, 

185, 201, 252, 261, 264, 

281, 287, 306 
Heredia, Jose-Maria, 263 
Hericourt, 196 
Hermance, 267 
Heurta, Jehan de la, 127 
Houssaye, Arsene, 205 
Huchisi, 202 
Hugues III, ir8 
Hulls, Chateau des (see La 

Rochette) 
Humbert IV, 181 

Ile-de-la-Palme, 176-177 
Innocent IV, 159 

Jean-sans-Peur, 64, 126-127 
Joigny, 5, 20, 25-27 
Joinville, House of, 203 
Jude, Paul, 220 
Just, 72, 

Labedoyere, 249 

La Fontaine, 7 

Lamartine, 165-168, 243, 

246, 267-268 
Lamartine, Chateau de, 

166-168 



Index 



329 



Langeac, Comfesse de, 78 
Langres, 149 
Lans-le-Bourg, 286 
Laroche, Madame, 8 
La Rochepot, Chateau de, 

146-148 
La Rochette, 269, 282-283 
La Tour Ronde, 2y6-2yy 
Lauzun, 202 

La Valette, Cardinal, 190 
Lavin, 284 
Lebrun, 72 
Le Chatelard, 243 
Lemuel, 88, 91 
Le Notre, 30, 74 
Lepautre, Jean, 220 
Lepelletier de Saint Far- 

geau, 28 
Les Bauges, 243 
Lesdiguieres, Chateaux de, 

311-312 
Lesdiguieres Marechal de, 

214, 221, 226-227, 252, 

288, 306, 308, 311-312 
Les Laumes, 68 
Lipponiano, 7 
Longueville, Duchesse de, 

6, 66 
Lorraine, Duchy of, 196 
Lorris, 22 
Louhans, 211, 212 
Louis I (Le Debonnaire) 

164, 177 
Louis VII (Le Jeune), 22 

45 
Louis IX (Saint), 45, 159 
Louis XI, 30, 116, 142, 18 

220, 251, 296, 298, 309- 

310, 314, 316, 317, 31' 

320 
Louis XII, 108, 116, 188 

247, 254 
Louis XIII, 73, 124, 190. 

213, 228, 282 
Louis XIV, 38, 70, 71, 74 

94, 99, 102, 130, 138, 183 

201-202, 220 
Louis XV, 63 



Louis XVI, 78 

Louis Philippe, i6y, 323 

Louvois, Marquis de, 94, 98 

Lugny, 153 

Luvois Family, 84 

MacMahon Family, 150 
Macon, 5, 25, 153, 157, 163- 

165, 168, 170, 171, 175, 

177, 178, 210, 213 
Magny-en-Vexin, 25 
Mailly-le-Chateau, 35 
Maine, Due de, 202 
Mandrin, 315 
Mansart, 122 

Mantaille, Chateau de, 293 
Mantailles, 314 
Mantoche, iii 
Manuel, Chateau de, 287 
Marchand, Commandant, 

178 
Marcigny, 155-156 
Marges, Comte de, 225 
Marigny Family, 54 
Marmont, Chateau de (see 

Chatillon) 
Marmont, Marechal, 78, 79 
Maurienne, Comte de, 305- 

306 
Maxilly, 276 

Mayenne, Due de, 175, 179 
Masard, Castle of, 322 
Masarin, Cardinal, 31, 74, 

88 
Medicis, Catherine de, 87, 

92 
Meillerie, - 277 
Mello Family, De, 54 
Menabrea, Leon, 282 
Mercier, 5 
Mercurey, 173 
Mersault, 133, 14S-146 
Michelet, 4 
Mignard, 72, yz, 92 
Milly, 166 
Miolans, Chateau de, 16, 

239, 283-285, 287 
I Mirabcau, Marquis de, 88 



330 



Index 



Molay, 208 

Moliere, 56 

Moiturier, Antoine, 127 

M onetier-les-Bains, 301 

Monge, 4 

Monglat, Marquise de, 70, 

71, 72, 74 
Monillefert, 145 
Montagny, Chateau de, 239 
Montaigu, Chateau de, 173 
Montaigu Family, 150 
Montbard and its Chateau, 

52, 62-66, 68 
Montbeliard, 190, 194-197 
Montbossier, Marquis de, 

60 
Montcony, 212 
Mont Dauphin, 308 
Montelimar, 246 
Montepin, Xavier de, ill 
Montersine, 153 
Montfaucon Family, 196 
Montluel, 215 
Montmayeur Family, 282, 

284 
Montmelian, 16, 239, 252, 

279-282, 283, 285 
Montmerle, 180-181 
Montmorency Family, 88, 

147 
Montpensier, Mile, de; 6, 7, 

28, 201 
Montreal, Chateau de, 37, 

43-44 
Montreal, Family of, 40, 44 
Montreval, Comte de, 165 
Montvallesen-sur-Sees, 288 
Moras, 314 
Moret-sur-Loing, 25 
Morveau, Guyton de, 4 
Moulin-a-Vent, 138 
Moulins-en-Allier, 140 
]\Ioutiers, 286 
Murillo, 74 
Musset, Alfred de, 65 

Nantua, 213 

Napoleon I, 80, iii, 134- 



135, 189, 222, 248-249, 296, 

298, 301, 302-303 
Napoleon III, 233 
Nattier, 92 

Nemours, Dues de, 261-262 
Nernier, 267-268 
Nevers, Renaud, Comte de, 

30 
Noble, Chateau de, 168-169 
Noblemaire, M., 264 
Noisat, Commandant, 134- 

135 
Nolay, 146-147 
Nuits, 131, 133, 139 
Nuits - sous - Ravieres, 99- 

100 

Orleans, Henrietta, Duch- 
esse d', 232 

Paray-le-Monail, 17, 155 
Passerat, Baron, 268 
Peregrin, 92 
Perier, Casimir, 226 
Pernand, 145 
Perrenot, Nicolas, 193 
Philibert le Beau, 211 
Philibert II, 216 
Philippe-Auguste, 23, 45, 

183 
Philip pe-de-Champaigne, 92 
Philippe-le-Bon, 36, 64, 118 
Philip pe-le-Hardi, 105, 108, 

115, 118, 126-127, 134 
Philippe II, 193 
Pierre, 208 

Pisa, Nicolas de, 168 
Poitiers, Diane de, 93, 256- 

257, 320 
Pommard, 131 
Pontaix, 323 
PontarHer, 186, 187 
Pontcharra, 247, 251, 252 
Pont d'Ain, 215 
Pont-de-Vaux, 212-213 
Pont-de-Veyle, 213-214 
Pot, Philippe, 147 
Pouges-les-Eaux, 7 



Index 



331 



Poussin^ 74 
Primataccio, 92, 96-97 
Prud'hon, 4 

Quentin de la Tour, 92 
Queyras, Chateau, 308-309 
Quincy, The, 90 

Rabutin Family, 150 
Rabutin-Chantel Family, 54, 

69 
Ragny, Dame de, 44 
Raguse, Due de, 78, 79 
Rambeauteau, 153 
Rameau, 4 
Rancurelle , 129 
Renan, Ernest, 263 
Ribbonnier, 149 
Richard Cceur-de-Lion, 45 
Richelieu, 10, 73, 97, 190, 

227, 324 
Ripaille, Chateau de, 271- 

273 
Roche, Sires de la, 147 
Rochechinard, Chateau de, 

318-319 
Rochefort, Sires de, 79 
Rochefort - en - Montague, 

Chateau de, 252-253 
Rochefort - Lucay Family, 

253 
Pochette Family, De la, 

239, 274 
Rollin, Nicolas, 129, 142, 

144 
Romanee-Conti, 136-138 
Romans, 321-323 
Romenay, 177 
Rouge, Chateau, 287 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 65, 

229, 234-237, 245, 262, 265, 

277 
Rude, 4, 13s 

Sade, Marquis de, 283 
Saint Antoine, 319-320 
Saint-Beauve, 114 
Saint Beninge, 103 



Saint Bernard, 45 

Saint Bernard, Chateau de, 

262 
Saint-Bonnet-de-Joux, 154 
Sainte Croix, 323-324 
Saint Donat, 253, 256-257 
Saint Fargeau, 6, 27-28 
Saint Ferreol Family, 224 
Saint Frangois - de ~ Sales, 

271 
Saint Gengoux, 173 
Saint Gingolph, 266 
Saint Jean-de-Losne, 190 
Saint Laurent, 219 
Saint Marcellin, 218, 315- 

316, 319 
Saint Michel de Maurienne, 

238 
Saint Nicholas-les-Citeaux, 

139 
Saint Pierre d'Albigny, 283 
Saint-Pont, 166-168 
Saint Rambert, 293 
Saint Seine, 109 
Saint Trivier-de-Courtes, 

177 
Saint Vallier, 292, 320 
Saint Veran, 309 
Saint Vorles, Canons of, 

77 
Sales, Comte Louis de, 261 
Salins, Guignonne de, 142 
Sambin, Hugues, 4, 124, 

125-126 
Sarcus, Comtesse de, 69 
Sarto, Andrea del, 74 
Sassenage, 253-254 
Saulieu, 5, 57-60 
Saulx-Tavannes , Marechal 

de, 149 
Savace Family, De, 54 
Savegny-sous-Beaune, 145 
Savoigny, Chateau de, 69 
Savoy, 2, 14, 15, 16, 102, 

I99> 215, 216-217, 223, 

229-244, 245, 252, 264, 

266, 278-289, 306 
Savoy, House of, 177, 180, 



332 



Index 



201, 203, 210, 213, 215, 
216, 227, 229-234, 239, 240, 
243, 251, 252, 260, 263, 
268, 270, 271, 281, 28s, 
288 

Sciez, 268 

Segur, Pierre de, 195 

Semur - en - Brionnais, 156- 

157 
Semur - en - Auxois, 2^, 50- 

53, S6, 62 
Sennonais, The, 19, 29, 84 
Sens, 5, 14, 20, 21 
Serlio, 2$ 

Seruin, The, 34, 43 
Seve, Jean de, 181 
Sevigne, Mine, de, 6, 53-56, 

59, 69, 72 
Short, Frank, 164 
Sigismond, Emperor, 215, 

232 
Sluter, Claus, 127 
Sone, Chateau de la, 320- 

321 
SouiHot, 34 
Souvre, Anne de, 95 
Stendhal, 191, 247 
Sue, Eugene, 262 
Sully, Chateau de, 149-150 
Sully Family, i^y, 281 

Taine, 263 

Tanlay, Chateau de, 16, 86- 

93, 96, 98 
Tapffer, 273 
Tarentaise, The, 286-288, 

303, 304 
Tavannes Family, 149-150 
Terr ail Family, 250-251 
Terreaux-a-Verostres, 154 
Thil Family, De, 54 
Thevenin Family, 88 
Thodure, 314 
Thoire et Villars, Sires de, 

201 
Thoissey, 178-179 
Thoisy-la-Berchere, 60 
Thone, 264 



Thonon-les-Bains, 268-270, 

271, 272, 273 
Thoron, Manoir de, 264 
Thorwaldsen, 194 
Toise, 174-175 
Touches, 173 
Touges, 267 

Tour de Fonbonne, 275 
Tour-de-Pin, 17, 246 
Tour, Manoir de la, 264-265 
Tour, Quentin de la, 236 
Tour Sans Venin, 254-255 
Tour, Villa de la, 262 
Tournette, 263 
Tournus, 5, 162, 175-176 
Trevoux, 5, 180, 181-184 
Tonnerre, 20, 29, 35, 84-86, 

93, 99 
Tonnerre Family, 30, 33, 84, 

93, 94,. 95, 98 
Tremouille Family, De la, 

54 
Troches, Chateau de, 268 
Turner, 164 

Urban III, 241 
Uriage, 224-225 
Uses, Dues de, 299 

Valbonne, 215 
Valence, 247, 293, 295-298 
Valentinian, Emperor, 102 
Valois, Jeanne de, 25 
Valois, Philippe de, 218, 291, 

292, 322 
Val-Romey, 199, 201, 206 
Varambon, Sire de, 183 
Vatel Family, 59 
Vauban, Chateau de, 48-49 
Vauban, Marechal, 34, 46- 

49, 187, 191, 192, 223, 308 
Vaucanson, 320 
Vergy, Chateau de, 139 
Vermanton, 5 
Vezelay, ^6, 44-46 
Vibrave Family, 48 
Vienne, 290-295, 314, 324 
Vienne, Archbishops of, 275 



Index 



333 



Vienne, Comtes de, 218, 291, 

293 

Vienne, Guy of (see Calix- 

tus II) 
Villaines-en-Dutnois, 66-67 
Villars, Sires de, 180 
Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, 21-25 
Villefranche, 181-182 
Vireville, 314 
Vizille, Chateau de, 214, 

225-228, 300, 312 
Voltaire, 52, 56, 204-205 



Warens, Mnie. de, 229, 236 
Werve, Claus de, 127 
Whymper, 301 
Wurtemburgs, Chateau of 
the, 195-196 

Young, Arthur, 8, 236 
Yvoire, 268 

Zinzerling, 7 
Zizim, 318-319 



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